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by Losille



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, Goldilocks and the Three Bears Elements, Witch - Freeform, Witchcraft, fairytale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:59:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 96,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom returns home grouchy and exhausted from a cramped flight after four months away for work. Unfortunately, there’s already someone sleeping in his bed.</p><p>
  <b>PLEASE NOTE: AS OF MARCH 16, 2018 ALL WIP STORIES WILL BE ON HIATUS UNTIL MAY 25TH. You are, of course, welcome to reread, read, leave comments, etc, but no updating will occur until the summer. Thanks for your understanding!</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve unapologetically borrowed some ideas from The Holiday and, well, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” This won’t be all rainbows and butterflies, though, so you’ve been warned.

Tom unfolded himself from the black chauffeured car and lifted his hands over his head in a stretch that tugged the hem of his shirt away from his jeans. The stiff muscles in his shoulders and lower back groaned the further he moved, joints popping to illustrate his advancing age and how airplane seats weren’t getting any more comfortable, even in first class—especially after spending the better portion of a day travelling in one. However, he figured, the sore body was more than worth it so long as he was home for the foreseeable future.

Blowing a stream of hot air into the chilly spring night, he peered up at the two-story building to reacquaint himself with his surroundings. He’d been away for so long he barely recognized the slightly peeling exterior paint or the off-color shutters he never bothered to have repainted. What was the use in changing their hideous shit-brown hue, anyway, when he was hardly around long enough to enjoy them? The thought that he might actually have time to do something about them this time around made him sigh.

“Your bags, sir,” said a voice, demanding but professional, at his elbow.

Tom blinked hard at the little man who had interrupted his contemplation. The driver had met him at Heathrow with an iPad and his surname scrawled on the screen. Well, his decoy surname—the name he used when he didn’t want people to know where he was going to be. The name Luke made him use after that time at the airport where a crowd had gathered around and followed him to the car. Even though the only reason he needed a driver in the first place was due to the two girls before _that_ who stalked him home on the Tube. Life seemed so convoluted these days, considering the process he had to endure just to secure his sodding bags at the luggage reclaim, only to go home to a place he barely recognized in the pale moonlight.

Tom bit his lip and balled his fists, trimmed nails biting into his palm. “Oh, yes, I’ll just take them up.”

“You’re certain, sir?”

Tom nodded and dug into his jeans pocket for the fiver he’d stuffed there earlier. After exchanging the banknote for his luggage and guitar, he waited for the man to return to his vehicle and drive away before climbing the front steps. He produced his key ring from the messenger bag on his shoulder and let himself inside the foyer to dark, comforting silence. _His_ silence.

The maid cleaned recently, he noted, if the lemony scent of furniture polish hanging in the air was any indication; from what he could see in the scant light shining through the glass panes on the door, the parquet floors were glossy and without noticeable footprints from the damp weather. Another sigh passed his lips. He liked nothing more than the smell of a clean home. 

Wanting to preserve the cleanliness, he kicked off his shoes and shoved them under the small table by the door, next to which he deposited his bags, and the keys in the little bowl sitting on top of it. The unpacking would wait until morning. His bed and a sustained period of comfortable slumber, on the other hand, could not.

He moved across the main floor silently, like a cat, as though he were sneaking in past his mother after spending too long out with his mates. What was it about the dark stillness that made him tiptoe about, even though he needn’t be worried about noise in his own home? It was ridiculous. His mum wasn’t about to pop out of the shadows and accuse him of drinking too much. Nor would she be punishing him for missing curfew—again.

Tom laughed at himself and shook the thought away, following the path of the moonlight pouring in through the skylights overhead. He peeled off clothing as he went, anxious to get out of the restrictive fabric and revert to his tiny world of freedom in the confines of his own home. There was nothing so liberating as walking around your own place naked as a jaybird.

He was unzipping his jeans by the time he pushed open the door to an even darker bedroom. The scent of patchouli and lavender accosted his nose; it wasn’t an abhorrent smell, but he figured the maid got carried away with some cleaning product. He made another mental note to tell them to ease up on it in the future, but that, again, could be done after a good sleep.

He shut the door behind him, leaving the room pitch black—just the way he liked it. No light. No alarm. Blackout draperies on the windows. Just darkness. It was the best way to sleep, even though it wasn’t the best fumbling for a light switch on the wall.

“Fuck,” he muttered, banging about, trying to find the switch, until finally giving up; he’d reacquaint himself with the lights in the morning. Robbed of sight, he stretched his arms out in front of him to guide his way through the room until his eyes adjusted as much to the absence of light as they could. But even then, his ability to see anything was reduced to very basic outlines.

He bumped into the bathroom door and the wardrobe before his shins finally connected with one of the bedside tables. A sigh escaped his mouth; his shoulders sagged. Bed. Finally.

Reaching out across the expanse of mattress, feeling for the top of the comforter to pull it back and climb in, he made a discovery so startling his immediate and involuntary reaction was to recoil as though he’d just uncovered a venomous snake. Then, in the same inelegant movement, he collided with the wardrobe. Again. This time, much more violently than the first.

His shoulder connected with a sharp corner, stopping his leap mid-air. Blinding pain shot down his arm and the things stacked on top of the wardrobe fell to the ground in a raining clatter, but not before adding insult to injury by popping him on the head on the their descent.

All of this happened as a feminine shriek pierced the silent night and the bedside light flicked on, leaving him to stare at a woman as she struggled to untangle herself from the sheets on the bed. The thin nightshirt covering her body had ridden up in sleep; a firm, rounded arse was his first and only indication as to the intruder’s age. She was youngish or had a very gifted plastic surgeon. Whatever the case, even in his state of terrified confusion, he admired the anatomy for a split second before the shirt slipped back into place.

Then, of course, he slammed back to reality and the fact that he was staring at a strange woman—a strange woman who had been sleeping in his bed.

“What the fuck—”

“Get out!” she shrieked again, this time forming words. She whipped around to face him, wide awake and chest heaving from the sudden adrenaline.

He stepped forward.

She held her hands out to stop him and fumbled around the bedside table in her rush to, he presumed, locate a weapon of some sort. “Stay away! I know how to kick box!”

“Calm down,” he pleaded, taking a moment to breathe himself. His heart was still pounding in his throat. “I’m not going to hurt you, lady.”

The woman squinted in the dim light and knocked the things on the table to the ground. “Shit. My glasses.”

She dropped to her knees on the floor and patted the carpet, mumbling something and occasionally looking in his direction to ascertain his whereabouts. “I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave!”

He patted the pocket of his jeans, but remembered leaving his mobile in his jacket pocket. And the jacket was on the back of a couch in the sitting room. “Maybe I should do that for you—”

“What do you mean?” she yelled, finally locating her glasses and jamming them on her delicate face.  They were thick-rimmed and tortoiseshell, somewhat shaped like his own, but they were too big for her face.  She rubbed her eyes a few times and blinked, as though trying—and finding it difficult—to make sense of what her restored eyesight was telling her. When she finally focused, she froze. “Oh my God.”

“Hi,” he said, waving his hand. It was flippant. So daft. Why was he saying hello to an intruder? This was—

“Oh... my... God...”

He sighed. “Why do you keep saying that?”

She reached for the blanket and quickly wrapped it around her shoulders, enclosing her body in a cocoon of warmth and perceived safety. “Am I dreaming?”

“Um... no.”

She inched closer, but maintained a wide berth before darting forward and pushing his chest squarely in the middle of his sternum. The strength of her fingers surprised him, but the way she doubled back to her previous position with another shriek of disbelief somehow made the twinge of pain worth it. Even if he ended up with a bruise.

“What the fuck is going on?” she wheezed. “Is this some kind of stupid hidden camera show?”

“Not that I’m aware.” He bit his lip and rubbed his chest. “What are you doing sleeping in my bed?”

She scoffed. “ _Your_ bed? It’s my bed. I paid for it... well at least for a few more weeks.”

Tom closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. _Oh._ “It seems there’s been an epic cock up.”

“What do you mean?”

“I let my house while I’m away filming,” he explained. “They must’ve not gotten word of the schedule change before you made your booking.”

“Wait.” She breathed in, then out, and frowned. “This is _your_ house?” She waved her right arm around for emphasis.

Frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to indulge her real or feigned misunderstanding. “If that’s _my_ bed, wouldn’t it imply that this is also _my_ house?”

“Why the hell would you rent out your house? Isn’t there some sort of celebrity privacy thing about it?”

“You didn’t know it was mine until just now,” he replied drolly.

“I don’t know if I should even believe you. I don’t know you! What if it isn’t your house, after all? What if you’re just another whack job who’s come to peel my skin off and wear it? Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you’re not insane.”

“ _Another_ whack job? You have a lot of those threatening you, do you?”

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Well, no, but that’s not the point. The point is even if you’re fucking Tom Hiddleston, that doesn’t mean you belong here or that I know you. Maybe—maybe you do this all the time! The estate agency unknowingly lures single women into staying here so you can come back and make your skin suit.”

The guffaw that escaped his mouth was some sort of cross between a bark and a bray. He couldn’t contain himself in such an absurd moment. “I assure you, I’d rather ogle the skin _on the woman_ than climb into a suit made from it, Clarice.”

“Yeah, because that statement makes this situation any better!” she shrieked and pulled the blanket so tightly around her body that her knuckles began to turn white.

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m sorry I intruded on you like this, but it’s an honest cock up. This is my house. I can go unlock the fourth bedroom, which is my office, and show you my case of awards and the deed to the house—”

She hemmed and hawed for a moment, but never loosened her grip on the blanket. Eventually, her shoulders sagged. “I still don’t trust you.”

He took a calming breath, glad to have mostly diffused the situation. “I understand that. But it doesn’t negate the fact that you’re sleeping in my bed.”

“You want _me_ to leave?!” Her words were deadpan, said in disbelief, and not without a little vitriol.

Frankly, all he wanted was sleep.

“In the middle of the night? Alone? A foreigner in London?”

When he didn’t reply, she continued on the offensive, “ _You_ should leave. I’ve paid for it. I have the contract.”

Tom sighed and gazed longingly at his bed. Despite the shakes wracking his body after the huge surge of adrenaline, he still wanted to dive headfirst into the covers and fall asleep. Except it was weird now. Weird because another woman—a stranger—had been sleeping there.  Maybe he’d never really thought about it before, with all the other people who had stayed in the house on their holidays, but now it was weird. Strange people slept in his bed. All the time. It, somehow, made his skin crawl. He’d have to reconsider his position on letting the place.

But that would have to wait until morning.

“No, please,” he said, resorting to the voice he used to calm hysterical fans. He hoped it worked on hysterical intruders. “I suppose nothing can be done in the middle of the night. You—you sleep here, and I’ll take one of the other rooms. You don’t have anyone else here, do you? Since no one else came in when you yelled—”

She shook her head in confirmation.

Why did she need a three bedroom house, anyway? Wouldn’t a flat have done? He brushed off the thought and crept slowly toward the door. There was no sense in making any quick movements and having her fly into another fit of panic.

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” he confirmed.

He edged his way out of the room with his back to the wall, never taking his eyes off of her. Though appearing to be relatively harmless—even if she proclaimed to have a familiarity with kick boxing—he wasn’t taking any chances. She could have been some crazed fan, too; she may not have known it was his home she was booking, but she could still do an insurmountable amount of damage to him now that she knew him. Especially since she seemed to have at least passing interest in him as an actor.  She knew who he was, after all.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s the agency’s fault.”

He stepped outside the door and waved at her again. “I’ll, uh, just let you get back to it, then.”

He reached for the door knob and pulled it closed, then combed his fingers through his hair, running through the events of the previous twenty minutes. How did he always find himself in these strange situations?

A few seconds later, he heard the creak of the floorboards beneath her feet as she inched across the room. Her shadow blotted out some of the soft golden light flooding out beneath the door.  He wondered if she was listening for him, too, or perhaps preparing to open the door and make sure he was gone. Instead, the locking mechanism on the door handle slipped into place. The floorboards creaked again until they were replaced with a squeaky mattress spring.

The light went out.

He spent a good minute trying to rein in his miffed ire. She seriously thought he was a problem?  That he was going to hurt her? Ha. She was lucky he didn’t call the police on _her_.  Sniffing in indignation at the sudden absurdity of his night, he turned sharply in the direction of the most immediate guest room.

Once inside the room, he shut the door and locked the lock. Two could play at that game.

It was only as he moved toward the bed and reached for the waist of his jeans that he remembered he was half naked. The jeans zipper was undone, revealing the pants beneath. He groaned. No wonder she was so hesitant to trust him. He would have been hesitant to trust himself, too.

He made one last mental note to apologize in the morning, but it was the last thing he thought before falling into bed and passing out. It wasn’t his first night in an unfamiliar bed, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t his last; he could make do until cooler—and more alert—heads prevailed in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support with this fic! I am humbled! Enjoy this chapter.

Tom shuffled from the guest bedroom early the following morning, searching for the frying bacon and coffee he had tried to ignore for the better part of an hour, all in the hope of falling back asleep. Stranger or not roaming his house, his empty stomach was not at all adverse to either a strong jolt of caffeine or some food, especially when it smelled so delicious.

On his slow journey to the kitchen—he couldn’t appear too anxious, considering—he stopped by the master suite and poked his head inside the door.  The things which had fallen on his head were neatly stacked in their place on top of the wardrobe again. She had stripped the bed to the bare mattress and, if his ears were not deceiving him, the bedclothes were probably spinning in the washing machine in the other room. All other proof of her living in the room seemed to have evaporated but for the lingering scent of lavender and patchouli.

At least, he figured, she wasn’t going to be a pain to evict from his house, if she had already made an effort to put everything in its place for him. It wasn’t exactly back to normal, but it was close enough that his relief propelled him toward the main room of the house. There he paused, again, and looked around for the clothes he had discarded on his march to bed in the dark.

The coat he’d thrown over a chair hung on a peg in the front entry, and his shirt had been neatly folded into a square and sat on top of the mattress pad from his bed on the couch. A small rolling suitcase and two shoulder bags propped up against it sat beside the guitar and his own luggage. He could, at any rate, say one thing about her. She was tidy and contained. As far as tenants went, he supposed that was a good thing.

He stepped around a column centered in the room to catch a glimpse of the kitchen. His guest hovered over the kitchen range, muttering something to herself as she flipped strips of bacon in a pan. She wore a white tank top, jeans with rips and frays that were not accidental, and an apron— _his_ apron—to protect her clothing.  

An abrupt flair of discomfort tensed his shoulders. It was weird.  Really, really weird to have a stranger in his house cooking food and wearing something he wore to do the same thing.  Where did she get off anyway? Why had she stuck around?  If he’d been in the same situation, he would have disappeared as quickly as he could. He especially wouldn’t be wearing the apron someone else had received as a gag gift and depicted a half naked male body wearing Union Jack boxers.

He opened his mouth to speak and draw her attention, but a strong knock at the front door interrupted him. Who the devil was at his house so early in the morning? And how had they got in without being rung in from the gate? He cursed under his breath, hoping she hadn’t given out his gate code to anyone.

She appeared out of the kitchen carrying a spatula, freezing when she saw him. “Oh, hi, I didn’t hear you get up.”

“Did you invite someone over?”

“Um,” she pursed her lips, “no. I think it’s probably an estate agent to handle this—they said they were going to send someone over when I called.”

“You already called?  


She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be here with you probably more than you don’t want me to be here in your house. Will you get it? I need to check on the pancakes I just poured on the skillet.”

Pancakes? His stomach growled in response.  For wanting to get the hell out, she sure seemed to be taking her time doing it.

He ran his fingers through his hair as she returned to the kitchen, but he didn’t have to answer the door.  Luke let himself and Olly into the foyer, making a racket as they clopped through to the sitting room.

Tom held his arms out in a half-shrug half-annoyed gesture. “What are you both doing here?”

Luke answered. “The agency called. I said I’d come down and smooth it over… and I need to get her to sign an NDA. Olly’s here to organize moving her to a new place.”

“Don’t tenants already sign an NDA as part of their tenancy agreement?”

“This is a special one,” Luke replied. “And the agency said they’d be in contact with you to discuss how they can make this snafu right. I suggested groveling.”

Olly set his messenger bag down on the table and silently pointed to the stack of plates and silverware sitting in the middle, which were next to a plate of butter, a boat of syrup, a bowl of freshly cut fruit, and a pitcher of orange juice.  A stack of small IKEA glasses and a vase of daisies and some purple flower he didn’t know completed the setting.  It wasn’t exactly fancy as far as table-laying went, but it was attractive enough to end up in some kitchen decor magazine.

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. I literally just woke up.”

“Oh, hello!”

Tom watched both of his friends as they took in the sight of the strange woman and the fact that she was wearing the apron Luke got him for Christmas a few years prior. To them, the situation was hilarious. Olly gurgled more than he laughed, but Luke couldn’t contain his pleasure.  Mirth cracked his pressed lips—at least he _tried_ to keep it together, though he ultimately failed—and blew out in harsh barking laughter.

“This is delightful!” Luke exclaimed. “This is perfect! Tom! You could’ve prepared me for the apron.”

“It’s not that funny, Luke.”

The as-yet-unnamed woman looked down at herself and then at them with a shrug of her shoulders. “It was all I could find. Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize.” Luke stepped forward. “This is amazing. I have to take a photo.”

Tom groaned. He wanted her gone. Not sticking around for photos, or least of all, brought up in random conversation from here to eternity. Luke wouldn’t be able to resist whipping out his mobile every time he wanted to tell the story. “Luke. Please.”

“Are you with the agency?” she asked.

“No,” Luke replied. “I’m sorry, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Luke, Tom’s publicist. That’s Olly, his assistant. And you must be Marigold Locke.”

 _Marigold Locke_?

She shook her head. “Ree, please—”

It was Tom’s turn to guffaw, though he was sure it sounded more indignant than it did truly amused.  Frankly, he wasn’t sure he found it as humorous as it should have been; it was more ironic than anything.

He couldn’t keep himself from asking her to clarify. “Wait. Is Marigold Locke your real name?”

Her ice blue eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Is it?”

“It’s on my passport. You wanna see it?”

“No, it’s just… _Goldilocks_.  Your name is basically Goldilocks.”

“Because I haven’t heard that shit my entire life. Call me Ree.” She waved her hand at the table, dismissing him and his incredulity. “So, I bought a bunch of food at the store yesterday and I didn’t want to take it with me. And I was hungry after tidying up and packing. So I made breakfast. Are you guys hungry? It’s bacon and pancakes.”

Luke glanced at him. Tom frowned. Luke looked at Olly.  Olly shrugged, pulled a chair out and plopped his arse down. Good old Olly. He could always be counted on to eat whatever was in front of him.

Luke laughed. “I guess that answers that.”  

“Coffee’s in the kitchen, too,” she said. “Just let me bring everything out.”

Tom didn’t move. He _couldn’t_ move.  Not as he watched this strange woman flit back and forth between dining area and kitchen as though she owned the place, carrying out plate after carafe of food and drink for his friends.  Then she served each of them like a perfect hostess, sharing a few laughs—they weren’t at all awkward with each other—as they exchanged pleasantries about the meal. Something about the situation was too comfortable.  Too familiar. As though it was right, or supposed to be right. But then it also felt all wrong.  Wrong because he didn’t know her.  Wrong because this was his house. He felt violated. His space had been invaded, and no one seemed to care.

Ree looked up at him when she realized he still hadn’t taken a seat yet. “Are you coming?”

“I, uh,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’m just—this is weird.”

“Trying to make the best out of it.” She lifted her arms.  One hand held a plate of bacon, the other squeezing kitchen tongs together. “Come on.”

He begrudgingly moved to the table and sat in the head seat, a totally conscious effort, he’d admit, at reasserting his dominance in his home. He wasn’t about to let her take the spot,  Rather than serving him, Ree set the bacon down next to his hand and went back to the kitchen. She came out, finally, without the apron and sat in the vacant seat to his right.

“Would you pass me the pancakes, Luke?” she asked.

Luke smiled around the piece of pancake he’d stuffed into his mouth and handed over the goods.

Tom served himself three strips of bacon and poured a full mug of black coffee. He reached for the fruit, but found himself suddenly, and utterly, distracted again. She set the gravy boat of syrup down and ran a finger along the lip to clean up a droplet of the sticky substance before it fell to the table.

Her fingers were long and graceful, nails manicured and painted a soft shade of pink, and they were quick to move toward her mouth.  The tip of her pink tongue licked away the syrupy drop from her finger. Her lips closed, sucking the remaining bit of sugar from her skin. It was quick, done in one swift motion, in the movements of passing dishes and preparing her plate, but it stuck out to him like nothing else.

It made him uncomfortable in a completely different and unwelcome way.  

“This is amazing,” Olly said. Tom was grateful for the distraction from her mouth and the new, unsettling thoughts springing to life low in his body.

Ree smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Can you come ‘round more often?”

Ice blue eyes darted to Tom, a slight smirk on her lips as she chuckled. Then she answered. “Um, sure, when I finally get my place set up, you can come by any time for breakfast.”

So she wasn’t a visitor? She intended to live in London?

“Your place?” Tom asked.

Tom sat back in his seat and held the coffee mug between his hands, letting the steam warm his nose. He wanted to look arch, but he supposed he probably looked more like a petulant child. Luke shot him a glare.

Ree smiled. “Yes, of course. I inherited a cottage an hour or so north of here, but it was very out of date and the pipes burst in the winter while it was unoccupied and ruined everything. The caretaker didn’t tell me about it before I decided to move—that’s why I’m here while they make it habitable enough to have running water and heat. They were running over time, you know, and they keep running into issues, so I had to extend my stay here… which, apparently, the estate agency messed up.”

She said it all in one breath. She liked to talk, that much was obvious.

“Which I’m really sorry about,” she finished.

He nodded his head. “I’m, er, sorry about last night, too…”

Luke’s and Olly’s attention snapped to him. Luke was the first to empty his mouth. “What happened last night?”

Ree’s cheeks turned pink in a becoming blush.  She busied herself by sticking a cube of melon between her cupid’s bow lips—they really were quite beautiful, he noted absently.

“Tom?” Luke asked again.

“When I came in…” Tom began. “You know, I was tired and I just started taking clothes off and I got to the bedroom…”

Ree laughed. “There might have been some Hannibal Lecter insults launched at each other about wearing other peoples’ skin.”

Olly choked on the food in his mouth, but eventually coughed it down.  When he finished hacking and caught his breath, his face was bright red. “Oh, this keeps getting better.”

“Please tell me you didn’t get into bed and that you weren’t naked,” Luke said.

“I still had my jeans on,” Tom replied.

“But they were undone,” Ree added.

Tom frowned. “I didn’t know you were going to be there—”

“I’m not mad… now, at least,” she said. “It’s actually pretty funny. You could lighten up about it.”

“You didn’t walk into your own home and find a stranger in your bed!”

“That’s not my fault!” she exclaimed. “Maybe you shouldn’t be letting your house out if you’re so tetchy about people around your things! Good lord. If I can get over the fact that a strange half-clothed man tried to crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night, you can get over this mix up that neither of us had anything to do with.”

Luke cleared his throat. “She does have a point…”

Tom rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee, effectively ending the conversation for a few minutes as they each concentrated on the food in front of them.  The food which, if pressed to admit it, turned out to be delicious. He hadn’t yet mastered the perfect crispiness to bacon, but hers was crunchy and flavorful without being burnt or soggy with grease.  Even the pancakes were the right amount of solid and fluff. The last time he tried to make them on a Shrove Tuesday, they’d ended up rubbery hockey pucks.

The silence, however, did not last as long as he would have liked. As their stomach reached full capacity, Ree dabbed at her mouth with a serviette and looked over at Luke. “So, I guess no one from the agency is coming?”

Luke shook his head. “I said I would come. They’ll be refunding you for the days you aren’t here, so if you have trouble with that you’ll have to talk to them. But I needed to be here so that I could ask you to sign an NDA.”

“Sure,” Ree said simply. “Where is it?”

Olly reached into his bag for the paperwork and handed it across the table to Ree.  She pursed her lips as her eyes scanned the document. “I’m sorry we have to ask you to sign one. It’s just the circumstances—”

“No, I understand,” Ree replied. “I would have been surprised if you didn’t have me sign something. What, with Mr. I’m A Special Person and Need Special Treatment sitting over there.”

“That’s not fair!” Tom exclaimed.

She scoffed. “Oh my god, can’t you take a joke?”

Luke shot him another warning glare. “Don’t mind him. We’ve just had some issues in the past with the general public finding out private and personal information about Tom, and since you now know this is his house, know gate security codes and such, we need this sort of thing for his personal safety.”

“What do you mean? You don’t change the gate codes?” Ree looked at Tom, confusion etching her fair features. “Are you an idiot? Anybody could come back here and use the old codes to get in.  You really should change it to a different code for tenants.”

“I don’t think I will be letting the house after this,” Tom said.

Truth be told, he hadn’t thought about it.  Actually, despite needing protection and needing to be guarded from overzealous fans, he still operated on the belief of the inherent goodness of humans.  He never considered changing the codes—even though she was right.  Anybody who had the gate code in the past could get back into the property. Or, worse, they could find out who lived there and sell it to the highest bidder.

“Nothing to worry about on that front,” he added. “No more tenants for me.”

All he could think about was a knife-wielding stalker standing over him in the middle of the night, threatening his life if he didn’t play into their insanity. If this cock up hadn’t cured him of wanting to let his house while he was away, that thought surely did.

He shuddered. “Luke, remind me to call the company to reset my code.”

Luke nodded. “Already planned on it.”

“Also, while we’re at it,” Ree continued, “You might want to think about getting a new maid service. I was perusing your bookshelves the other day and the books were literally caked in dust.  I could have made a whole legion of dust bunnies with the amount of grime I cleaned off of them.”

He nearly jumped from his chair. “Fuck, did you touch my books?”

  
“Whoa, calm down,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t change anything around and kept them in the order you had them in.”

“You’re sure you didn’t rearrange any of them?”

It wasn’t that he had them grouped by alphabetical order, or by genre, or even by Dewy Decimal. It was that he knew exactly where each of books went and where to go to find them.  He couldn’t imagine having to relearn where to go for his battered copy of the _Complete Works_ or the thrice-read _Justine_ in a sea of books that were now out of place.

“Look, I consider bookshelves sacred spaces, okay?” she said. “Messing around with something like that is… is… I don’t know what it’s like. I just wouldn’t do that.”

Tom sighed. “Fine. Thank you. Is there anything else you found defective in the house?”

“Oh! The garden walls—”

Tom held up his hand to stop her. “It was rhetorical.”

Ree wasn’t chastened by his response, and in fact only used the moment to draw in a breath. “But you really need to have someone look at the wall closest to the master bedroom. There’s a big crack in it from a tree root and if it opens up in a rainstorm, there’s a chance you could have a mini landslide into your bedroom windows. Or worse, the tree could fall on the house.”

He stared at her. That’s all he could do, really. Was stare.  The other two stared, as well, though they seemed to be looking at her with some odd mix of admiration and mirth.  Something that told him they were going to agree with her. He could only look at her in exasperation.

What right did she have any way?

She sighed heavily and shook her head at his silence, then looked at Luke. “Do you have a pen?”

Luke produced a pen. She quickly signed it, handing both the pen and agreement back to him. Fortunately, a mobile rang before she had a chance to launch into another diatribe.

It was Ree’s mobile. She looked at the screen and jumped from her seat. “Sorry, I have to take this. It’s my renovator.”

Then she was gone again, disappearing into the kitchen.

Luke let out a low whistle that ended in a laugh. “I like her.”

“Shut up,” Tom said. “She’s a nuisance.”

“That’s only because you don’t see just how amazingly awesome this situation is,” Olly said. “She made you breakfast. When was the last time someone made you breakfast simply out of the goodness of their heart? You should be grateful.”

He bit the inside of his cheek.  She was nothing more than a interloper preventing him from being comfortable in his own house.  An _infuriating_ interloper. She didn’t need to stay, she _chose_ to stay, probably to cause him more discomfort after the way he handled the night before.

Ree appeared in the doorway. “Good news. They’ve got everything up and running, so I can head out.”

“Oh, don’t feel like you have to rush off,” Luke said. Tom hoped he didn’t really mean that, and simply said it to be sociable.

She chuckled and waved her hand at him. “I think you’ve all had enough of me. Right, Tom?”

They laughed. Now they were all taking the piss out of him.

“I really should be going. I have to meet the flooring salesman up there to discuss what I want to do,” she replied. “So many decisions. My head’s about to explode… are you guys done? Let me just clean up my mess and I’ll be out of your hair…”

Luke grabbed her wrist when she reached over for his plate. “No, we’ll take care of the washing up. And Olly’s going to drive you where you need to go.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s an hour or so away. I’ll just catch the train.”

Olly shook his head. “Nope. I’m driving. It’s the least I could do for the scrumptious breakfast.”

Ree giggled and patted Olly’s shoulder, raising a perfectly arched brow at Tom. “Well, at least there are a few gentlemen still left in the world.” Her point made, she cleared her throat. “Do mind terribly if we head out, Olly?”

Tom didn’t bother seeing them outside. Frankly, he didn’t care enough to do so, especially when Olly and Luke were helping her with her bags. When the door finally closed, the house was perfectly silent.  

It was almost too quiet.

 _Almost_ being the operative word.

With a sigh, Tom began collecting dishes. At least he was alone.  And, for the first time in months, he could finally relax. With no projects to prepare for and no events on his calendar, he was more than a little ready to begin his self-imposed isolation.

Even though it was, by his estimate, thirteen hours overdue.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks all, for reading. Also again sorry for the wait. As always, I endeavor to get the update out more quickly than the last. Wish me luck! ;-)

Marigold was ready to burn it to the ground.  All of it.  The shed. The garden.  And the goddamn cottage renovation-from-hell. The fucking cottage was possessed.

It wasn’t the contractor’s fault. Nor was it hers or the previous owner’s. It was, rather, history’s fault—bound together in cottage building without a plumb line or reliable construction equipment for a solid home meant to stand the test of time… one without cracks and fissures that seemed to open up out of nowhere.

She heaved a sigh, watching from the large bay window in the front room as the electrician climbed into his truck and backed out of the long gravel drive, onto the county road and away toward the horizon. Dark clouds smudged the pink and purple dusk, adding some beauty to an otherwise dreadful day.  She groaned and pulled the wool blanket tighter around her shoulders, warding off the chill slowly creeping into the space despite the fire blazing away behind her.

When she had decided to move her life to England—taking use of her two-year-old inheritance from her great aunt, who had once occupied the cottage—she figured the place would only need some work to combat the overuse of flowered upholstery and ugly red carpet. What she hadn’t prepared for was a complete renovation, practically from foundation up, and the utter nightmare it would become when dealing with multiple centuries old building code, plumbing, and electric.

She also hadn’t prepared for burst pipes, requiring her to take lodgings elsewhere while the work was completed.  Or, rather unceremoniously, being thrown out of her temporary lodgings in such a spectacular way. It was his house, after all, and she was merely a guest. Hiddleston had every right to ask her to leave, but the whole mess had turned into such a comedy of errors, she was near her breaking point.

Pretty soon, sunny, typically easy-going Ree was going to turn into grouchy, uncomfortable Marigold.

There was some hope on the horizon, though. The electrician promised full functionality of the facilities in the next twenty-four hours, after which electronics and internet could be installed. The water had already been restored, and the kitchen and bathrooms finished.  After the flooring went in, she could focus on the furnishing aspect and finally get on with life.

She drug her attention from the window to the mantel over the fire where she’d placed a row of plain white candles. She sighed. They were nearing the end of their lives, with hardened wax spilling over the sides and onto the ancient stone beneath them, but there was enough for one more night—though it was bound to be an early one.

Once they burned out, she was stuck in her makeshift nest of blankets and pillows. She didn’t relish the thought of stepping on a rusty nail while fumbling through a night dark as pitch. Especially so, since she was out in the middle of nowhere.  Her tetanus shot was up to date, but she wasn’t one to chance it living in the country with no transportation and no one to call for help.

Someone, however, knocked on her door just as she finished lighting the candles.  Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound; it took a good few seconds before she could find any air in her lungs. Who the devil was that? Only a few people knew she was even in England, much less knowing she was at the cottage. Thoughts of serial killers and axe murderers filled her head. They didn’t have those in England, did they?

She pulled at the blanket around her shoulders as though it were armor to protect her from the unexpected guest. It just didn’t seem to get tight enough or warm enough. Marigold cleared her throat. “Who is it?”

“It’s your best friend who you seem to be ignoring because I have sent about a million texts and left you ten messages trying to get in touch!” called the voice from the other side of the wooden door.

Marigold’s shoulders relaxed; she practically skipped to the door and threw it open. The small woman standing on the front stoop holding a brown paper bag and a bottle of wine was a sight for sore eyes. “Asha, please tell me there’s food in that bag.”

“Mum sent me with biryani and samosas,” Asha replied. “Because it’s okay if they’re not piping hot.”

Marigold’s stomach twisted in hunger, reminding her of the fact that she hadn’t eaten since the greasy fry-up at a nearby village that morning.“If you tell me there’s also gulab jamun in there, you may enter.”

Asha jiggled the bag and craned her neck to peer inside at the contents. “Let’s just say there would have been more had I not been stuck behind a lorry on the road up here. But yes, she made sure to pack some along with a heaping dose of guilt. I’m supposed to tell you to stop being a hero and to come stay with us… because you should have already been staying with us because you are family.”

“I’m fine,” Marigold replied.

Asha stuck her head in the cottage, catching a quick glimpse of the exposed concrete floor foundations and unpainted walls. “Yeah, just fine. You’re living like a junkie in a drug house. Do you even have a mattress under that?”

Marigold glanced at the pile of blankets and pillows in front of the fire place.  Then chuckled. “It’s just blankets. And it’s only been a few nights. I’m fine. No worse than going on that backpacking trip down the Grand Canyon you once drug me to over Spring Break.”

“Oh, please,” Asha replied. “You could’ve stayed in Boston, but you didn’t, because of that Hottie Hugh guy in my observational astronomy class. So don’t blame me.”

The mention of Hottie Hugh conjured a sigh of remembrance. God, she hadn’t thought about Hugh in years. He had been everything in undergrad. Blond. Tanned. Genetically gifted physically… and smart as a whip, considering he had gained entrance to Harvard without a wealthy family member making a donation. He was a god amongst pigeon-chested nerds and overcompensating snobs. The sexy Australian accent sealed his spot in the fantasies of many a co-ed.  

“And why would you want to sleep on the hard floor? Doesn’t your back hurt?”

Marigold shrugged and stepped back from the door, sweeping her arm to allow Asha inside.  When they were both safely indoors, Marigold locked the door. Better safe than sorry.

“I feel ancient when I get out of _bed_ in the morning,” Asha rattled on, “it’s got to be impossible to get up from that.”

“Maybe you should do more yoga, like me,” Marigold teased.

Asha glared at her. “Ha. Ha. _Ha._ ”

“I hope you brought a corkscrew for the wine.”

Asha dropped the bag of food in front of the fire and held up the bottle. “Nope, only the finest screw-top wine tonight.”

Marigold laughed. “Only the finest for us, huh?”

“Of course. I’m a natural sommelier.”  Asha pulled a large pillow from the pile and plopped down on top of it.  She crossed her legs and cracked open the bottle of wine.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” Marigold said, though she joined her friend by sitting on another pillow and reaching into the bag of food. “Did you eat?”

Asha nodded. “Yes. I had a date.”

“It’s early still.”

“I know,” Asha replied. “They set me up on another blind date. I left right after dinner.”

“Still trying to match you?”

Asha groaned and dropped her head into her hands.  She ran her fingers through her long dark hair. “I just… I know it’s us. It’s what we do, but they’re still stuck in the past. They want to arrange it, especially after they waited so long for Nik to find someone. They want grandchildren.”

Marigold grabbed the wine bottle and tipped it to her lips. The cloying sweetness fought with the vinegary aftertaste, but she took two big swigs before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand like a seasoned, but messy, drunk. She set the bottle back between them, sensing the quickly blooming warmth on her cheeks. “At least they have the _opportunity_ to have a few soon.”

“Your parents, too?” Asha asked.

Marigold shrugged. “Well, you know my mom. Off in her own little world. But Dad… he won’t exactly come out and say he wants them, but it’s heavily implied.”

“Is that why you moved all the way over here to a crumbling cottage in the middle of nowhere?” Asha took a delicate sip of the wine, cringed and coughed. “God, that really is awful.”

“It’ll do the trick.”

Asha chuckled. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Come on, Ree. We’ve known each other since we were in nappies,” she said. “You, of all people, don’t just out of the blue decide to move house—to another country—and leave your father to his own devices. Something’s got to be going on.”

“Honestly, there’s nothing huge,” Marigold replied. “At least, I don’t think. I’ve been meaning to come spend a summer, anyway. Work on the cottage and figure out if I was going to keep it or not.  It holds so many memories for me and it was ridiculous to leave it crumbling here without anyone to enjoy it. Then Random House had the art director position open up in London…”

Asha’s dark eyes narrowed.  She wasn’t content with the answer provided. “And?”

“And… what?”

“I know there’s more. You’re hesitating. Out with it.”

It wasn’t worth batting around the bush. Not with Asha.

“Around Samhain, I started having this weird feeling like I needed to be here in England. I was thinking about Aunt Violet more and more, and then the night visits started—”

To her credit, Asha didn’t balk at the notion. Of course, Marigold knew she probably wouldn’t, even though the ever rational Asha believed in numbers and science over anything remotely approaching the spiritual or supernatural. “Are you saying you’re starting to have visions, too?”

Shrugging, Marigold answered, “I’ve always had them. Well, I’ve had the intense intuition my whole life. You know that. But these make it seem like she’s as real as you sitting there. She keeps telling me I need to come ‘home.’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“You know I’m the first person to discredit any talk about the paranormal,” Asha said, “but I also know the women in your family are a little unusual. Maybe you do need to be here for something?”

“Maybe.” Marigold sighed and turned to look into the fire. She watched the dancing flames lap at the ancient stones inside the firebox for a few seconds before replying. “I just wish that these abilities came with a written walkthrough guide so I could figure it all out, do what I’m supposed to do, and move on.”

Asha laughed. “Baby, isn’t that life? There are no cheat codes to life.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t wish there were!”

“Hey, just think: maybe Violet wants you here to make sure you’ll get your owl from Hogwarts.”

Marigold chucked a pillow at Asha’s head. “Yeah, you’re _so_ funny.”

“Just remember it’s levi _o_ sa not levios _ah,”_ Asha said. “I mean, I’m a Muggle and even I know that.”

“You can leave if you’re going to be like that.”

Asha giggled. “What’s the point in having a witchy best friend if I can’t take the piss out of her?”

Marigold rolled her eyes and finally dug into the lukewarm food Asha had brought with her.  They sat in silence, watching the fire and enjoying the comfortable companionship as they passed the wine back and forth.  Asha never took more than a sip, and gave up quickly, claiming having to drive back to Cambridge.

Finally, after the food containers had been returned to the bag for the trip home, Asha turned to her with an expectant expression. Her brows furrowed in concern and a visible shiver rocked her body. “Ree, staying here is really miserable. Won’t you at least come home with me until they get the heat working and you have furniture to sleep on?”

Marigold sighed and hung her head. “It’s not really that bad.”

“Yes, it is,” Asha said.

The fire was almost dead, and full from dinner and relaxed from the wine she’d drunk, the last thing Marigold wanted to do was stoke it again before going to bed. She looked at Asha. “Are you sure your parents won’t mind?”

Asha shook her head. “Mum told me if I didn’t bring you back, I might as well stay out myself.”

She didn’t doubt it. Mrs. Raji was not a woman to be ignored. She glanced up at the mantelpiece and the quickly dwindling candles. “I guess that’s better than the owner of my last rental.”

“Oh! Yeah! About that… you never said in your message why you had to leave,” Asha said.

“The owner came home earlier than expected. I’d rather not talk about it,” Marigold replied.  She got up from her seat and began throwing things back into her suitcase.  One of these days, she’d finally have a place to put her shit, instead of living out of a cramped roll-y bag.

Asha frowned. “That bad?”

Marigold looked at her friend. “Other than the fact that I was an utter tit and rambled incessantly and stuck around longer than I should have? I fucking made him breakfast, Asha. It seemed like a nice thing to do—‘sorry about invading your space, mate, even though I had nothing to do with it.’ God, it was horrible.”

“Was he hot, at least?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you only get flustered and ramble around good looking men,” Asha said. “Case in point, Hottie Hugh.”

Marigold scoffed, trying to hide her embarrassment. Gods, three days later, she was still mortified about the whole ordeal, even though Luke and Olly had tried their best to make it seem completely normal. “I do not.”

“You do! You so do!” Asha jumped up from her pillow and pointed an accusatory finger at her. “He _was_ hot, then.”

Marigold pursed her lips together, vowing to say nothing else.

“You have to tell me, start to finish.”

“No!”

“Yes! Please? You weren’t naked in the shower, were you?”

Marigold’s belly clenched. Fuck, that _would_ have been worse. Way, way worse. But still, who knows what he saw as she was scrambling out of bed. “He climbed into bed with me, not knowing I was there.”

“You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Asha’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, that’s bad.”

Marigold zipped her bag closed and stood up, resting her hands on her hips and meeting her friend’s eyes. “That’s not all.”

“It’s not?”

She shook her head. “You have to promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

“I’d never—”

“I’m serious, Asha. Not a soul. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, so I shouldn’t even be telling you.”

Asha drew a finger across her lips and twisted at the corner, as if locking them.

Marigold drew a deep breath. “The house belonged to Tom Hiddleston.”

Genius though Marigold knew Asha to be, Asha’s face fell into confusion.  Not stunned silence.  Just confusion. “What?”

“Tom Hiddleston crawled into bed with me, and then I made a tit of myself in the morning.”

“Did you _sleep with him_?”

“No!”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Asha said, holding up a hand to give herself a few more seconds to compute the information she’d learned. Horror etched her features. “Tom Hiddleston got into bed with you and you let him _go_?”

“Of course I did. He was practically naked and I was terrified being startled awake by a half-naked intruder.”

“He was _naked_?”

Marigold groaned. “He was _not_ naked. Only partially. His jeans were still—”

“But you let him go? You were living the dreams of a billion horny fangirls, and you let. him. go.” Asha shook her head. “I’ll be needing your Hiddlestoner card for destruction. You’re going to fangirl prison.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you,” Marigold groaned. “It was a literal mess, Asha. And I’d rather not dwell on it. I just want to… move on.”

Asha grabbed her hair and threaded her finger through the silky strands, as though the information was stressing her out.  Maybe it was. Marigold sure as hell felt stressed reliving that particularly awkward twelve hours of her life.

Marigold blew out the candles on the mantel, throwing the room into darkness but for the embers dying in the firebox and the scant moonlight pushing through the clouds outside the large front windows. “Can we please just get going?”

“You’re never going to live this down, you know.”

She huffed, tossing one of her bags at Asha. “Carry that.”

Asha grinned. “Come on, this is the most random thing to ever happen to anyone. You have to laugh.”

“I know, and I’m a lightning rod for random shit. I swear it’s a curse.”

“Maybe it’s one of your superpowers.”

Marigold stepped out the front door, beckoning for Asha to follow her. “It’s not a superpower. It’s my fatal flaw. My Achilles heel, if anything.”

Asha ignored her and went to her car, opening the doors and putting her things away.  Marigold watched her do this from the front stoop, considering her words.  She had always considered her strange luck to be an Achilles heel, bringing into her life bittersweet happenings more often than not. That Fate, for all it was worth, liked fucking with her occasionally. But was it really fucking with her—or trying to tell her something else?

Her stomach twisted, but Marigold quickly disregarded the idea.

No, it wasn’t. It _couldn’t_ be. Especially considering how poorly the man in question had behaved. The last thing she wanted was to be somehow inexplicably bound to guy with an ego the size of Russia.

Marigold locked her front door and joined Asha in the car, forcing herself to concentrate on the songs on the radio and the idle chatter as they bumped down the gravel path for the paved road leading to Cambridge.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? A quick update? The world must be ending! Please enjoy this update, and thank you for reading, liking/kudo-ing and commenting! :)

Tom spent a total of three days huddled at home like a friendless recluse, reclaiming the space for himself, and only himself. Nothing had been moved, and nothing was out of order, but it was still a weird sensation to go to bed every night in his own bed where a complete stranger had slept. Of course, he realized this was an odd issue to have, having slept in innumerable hotels and lettings across the globe while in the pursuit of his work life. Strange people slept in those other beds all the time before he got to them, and he never much minded so long as the linens were cleaned. Here, though, having briefly met the strange woman who had occupied his bed, it made all the difference. It was a difference he didn’t understand.

Fortunately, he was able to work through his issues, and by the third night had cancelled his letting contract with the agency and successfully eliminated what remained of the smell of lavender from his bathroom. Afforded a wonderful, worry-free night’s sleep, he woke on the fourth day to the blessing of a light rain shower outside and the urge to emerge from his solitude.

The first place he stopped was his favorite cafe a few minute’s walk from his home. It wasn’t busy, being that it was the middle of the morning between the breakfast and lunch rushes, so finding a spot to sit wasn’t difficult in their upper level.  He chose the semi-private nook with a soft leather couch—away from the eyes of wayward fans who might stumble in looking for him—and popped open his laptop to get a little work done while he waited for his coffee and food.

He wasn’t two minutes into answering emails when he heard a distinctly familiar, feminine voice floating up from the lower level. Why it was familiar, he didn’t know, but her accent was American and sweet. Craning his neck, he tried to peer down into the main dining room, but couldn’t see much from his vantage point.

“I’ll go find a spot upstairs,” she said, loud enough to be heard over the coffee grinder, to which she received a muffled reply.

Tom shifted in his seat and attempted disinterest at the sound of feet ascending the steps and the slight huff that escaped her lips when she made it to the upper level. He caved and glanced up, meeting the icy blue eyes of the woman he’d tried to get out of his mind for three days.

Her chin-length nearly platinum hair had tousled in the stormy wind outdoors—or maybe it was always like that, put together but never quite perfect—but she otherwise seemed well groomed. However, on closer inspection, he noted she was wearing the same white tank and ripped jeans from breakfast the other day. Only this time she’d thrown on some jewelry, makeup, and a smart fitted blazer. He hoped she had at least washed the clothes.

Thankfully, she didn’t say anything. She merely inclined her head, waved her hand slightly and readjusted the messenger bag slung across her body while she decided where to sit.  He, meanwhile, desperately tried not to take issue with the fact that the woman was back.  Not only was she back, but she had clearly gone out of her way to be here, at his favorite cafe, and once again invading his space. An uneasy feeling filled stomach. His skin crawled.  This was _his_ place, not hers.

A man joined her soon after; he was a beautiful specimen, even in Tom’s estimation. Very fit and very posh, especially as he was impeccably dressed in an expensive bespoke suit; they were both incredibly mismatched in height and comportment.  He set the order number down on the table and dropped the briefcase hanging from his shoulder on the table.

“I don’t have much time,” the man said. “My assistant just rang to say they moved up my meeting.”

“Poo,” Marigold replied, sitting up in her seat.

The man shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing enough of you in the coming weeks—Jaya said I was to make sure you’re coming to the wedding.”

Marigold laughed. “Are you kidding? Asha and your mother pretty much conscripted me into service last night.”

He beamed. “Well, you knew it was going to happen with you moving to England.”

“I don’t mind,” Marigold said. “I’d give anything to see you finally commit to one woman.”

Tom sighed and looked at his computer screen; he wanted to focus on his work, not a conversation between two other people. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. They were there and they were chatting, and his peace and quiet had been effectively shattered the moment he’d heard her voice downstairs.  Though, he had to admit, that it was strange that he was already capable of recognizing her voice, though he hadn’t known why at the time.

The man with Marigold shuffled through his briefcase and withdrew a thick manila envelope.  He slid it across the table to her. She picked it up, leafed through the contents, and set it back down. “Thanks for printing it off for me.”

“It’s okay, it’s all billable hours,” he joked. “You kill a tree, you pay for it.”

“I can’t help that my house is taking so long,” she scoffed.

The man chuckled. “Yeah, convenient excuse.”

Marigold pursed her lips and shook her head. “Just ask Asha, it’s terrible. I think she said it was like a junkie den or something.”

Electronic ringing filled the space between them. The man picked up his mobile again. “I’m sorry, Ree. I’ve got to go. My clients are already at the office.”

“Oh, fine,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

Then she got up, hugged him, and kissed his cheek. He was off, grabbed what must have been his coffee on the way past the server delivering their order, and disappeared.  And, once more, Tom was alone with Marigold and silence.  She caught his eyes again while she settled back into her seat and dug into her food.

Tom cleared his throat. “Friend?”

“Brother I never wanted but am stuck with anyway,” she replied simply.

And that was it. She didn’t ramble like she had a few days previously.  In fact, she didn’t make any attempt to continue the conversation. She seemed resolute in ignoring him. First, she concentrated on her mobile.  Then she pulled her own computer out of her bag and scrolled through whatever while she munched on her sandwich.  Until, finally, she glanced at him.

“What?” she asked peevishly.

“Huh?”

She huffed. “You keep looking over at me. Is there something you needed?”

“I have not been looking over at you.”

It was a bald-faced lie.  Of course he’d been watching her.  Every movement she made, he looked up to see what she was doing, morbidly interested in understanding her motives.

The expression on Marigold’s face was somewhat like the one his mum gave him when, as a child, he had tried to convince her he hadn’t eaten half a chocolate cake she had meant for dinner.

“Right,” she muttered with a shake of her head.

She focused back on her computer screen, and he returned to his. But in seconds, he found his attention once again drifting in her direction. She was a bloody magnet; he had no control over his movements.

This time, though, she didn’t even bother to look up to acknowledge him. “You’re doing it again.”

“I am not,” he defended.

“Your defensiveness would suggest otherwise.”

“You can’t even see me.”

Marigold grumbled. She shut her laptop and angrily stuffed her things back into her bag. He thought she was going to leave—which was perfectly fine with him, considering how distracting he found her—but instead crossed the otherwise empty level and plopped into the seat on the other end of the couch. A whiff of lavender filled his nose; it wasn’t unpleasant, but it would forevermore be her distinct scent. Anytime and anywhere he smelled it, he’d remember her. It made him uncomfortable.

He stared at her. Frankly, that was all he could do in his shock. She was bold, he’d give her that.

“Why do you have such a problem with me?” she asked, pointed and searching.  

He shifted awkwardly in his seat and scratched the back of his neck. Adjusted the collar of his shirt. “You know what my problem is.”

“Whatever happened at your place was a mistake neither of us had any control over,” she said. “Get over it.”

Tom rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the tension building in his shoulders. He was anxious, but why? She was one measly woman. A small one, at that; one he could easily handle. That was, if he just put on the charm. But he was way past charm. She’d see right through any attempt to put it on, especially with that damned inquisitive stare. Really, it was quite unnerving the way it seemed to shoot straight through him and reach deep down into the darkest places of his psyche. Places where, he believed, she had no business being.

“You said your cottage was about an hour away, and you expect me to believe you came all the way down here just for some five minute meeting with some guy?”

She blew a stream of air from her lips as though calming herself, but it turned into a soft, sarcastic whistle. “You really got a chip on your shoulder, don’t you?”

“What? No…”

“You think I came all the way over here because I might run into you?”

“I didn’t say that. You did.”

“Wow. Just… wow.” Marigold growled and stood up from her seat in a rush, bumping the nearby table with her knee. “I’ve got news for you, _buddy_.”

Tom understood that “buddy” might be code for “bastard”, but he merely blinked back at her.

She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I’ve had a really shitty week, and the last thing I wanted to do was go on a search for an entitled asshole. Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway? Who the fuck cares that you’re Tom-fucking-Hiddleston?”

Tom swallowed down a scratchy, sandpaper throat. He needed a drink, but he didn’t dare reach out for his cup of coffee. There was a real possibility he could lose his hand if the ferocity flashing in her bright eyes was any reliable indication to her state of mind.

“Not that you deserve an explanation, but my friend works just down the way—he’s a solicitor. It was easier to meet him here than at my cottage. Secondly, I found this place while I was staying at your house. I like fresh food, and I especially like good, potent coffee. They have both of these things,” she hissed. “And last, I have not had access to the outside world in four days because I have no electricity in my cottage, so I thought it would be good to get out. You’ll forgive me, then, if I couldn’t give a flying fuck about your poor, sensitive ego. Get over yourself.”

She spun on her toes and stalked toward the stairs. He listened as she scrambled out onto the bottom floor and said farewell to the staff behind the counter.  When he was sure she was gone—the door opening and closing was audible even over the din of the restaurant—he collapsed back onto the couch and puffed up his cheeks.  Slowly, trying to calm himself, he blew a long sigh and closed his eyes.

What was it about that woman that made him so volatile? Of course he was coming off of an extended press tour. Those always made him feel a bit frayed around the edges. He was totally over being shared and sharing—over playing with fans and press and being a “good boy”. He wanted to be left alone. But she had been there. In his house.  In his life. Whether she wanted to be there or not… no, whether _he_ wanted her there or not… she had invaded the last shred of sacred personal space he could claim as his.

Now it was all ruined. Not _because_ of her, no. She’d honestly done nothing wrong if she was to be believed.  Objectively, he knew that. She'd, rather unwillingly, become the personification of everything he hated about losing his privacy. There was, unfortunately, still that niggling doubt in his mind that she wasn’t as innocent as she claimed to be.

 _Fuck._ Fame had really fucked up his trust barometer.

Tom closed his laptop and reached beside him for the leather case.  Instead he found something cold, metallic, and shaped suspiciously like a mobile. Not his, though. And it hadn’t been there when he sat down.

He groaned. Naturally. Something _else_ to muck up his day.  He turned on the screen, but couldn’t get past the passcode; she didn’t have any emergency contacts accessible from the front screen.

The logical thing was to turn it into the employees at the till so they could give it to her when she returned later.

He didn’t turn it in. Some twisted part of him—the part of him that had more stupidity than sense—slipped it straight into his pocket next to his mobile. Nicking it was wrong. He knew that. He didn’t need it. Frankly, he didn’t need or want to see her again, especially if her presence continued to cause so much upset for him.

But the mobile stayed in his pocket.

Even as he collected his things,

And walked down the stairs,

And stopped at the till to say, “That woman that was—”

“Oh! Ree, you mean?”

What? They were on a first name basis? Just how many times had she been in here?

Tom nodded. “Yeah, her. She left her mobile up there—”

“Oh, no! Just leave it here and we’ll—”

“No!” he said. “Just tell her I have it.”

The girl frowned, her nose crinkling. “Okay… but…”

Tom coughed into his hand, repeating, “Yeah, just tell her I have it.”

“How will she—”

“She’ll figure it out.”

He strolled out of the cafe onto the street like it was any other day—and  most definitely _not_ the day he turned to a life of thievery to irritate a woman who irritated him on a cellular level.  

Even if it meant he’d have to see her again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took longer than I thought it would. My most humble apologies and thanks for everything. Please enjoy!

_Ring._

Killing Tom Hiddleston wasn’t the answer.

_Ring._

Death was too easy for him, no matter how satisfying it might feel to be the one to do it.

_Ring._

Marigold groaned and pressed her hip against the wall beside her, trying to bury deeper into the corner and out of the way of the cleaning crew lifting chairs onto tables to sweep up the floors in the middle of the cafe.

_Ring._

“Pick up the damn phone, Luke,” she muttered into the silence between rings. Marigold readjusted the cordless phone on her shoulder.

Juliet, the manager of the cafe, looked over a pyramid stack of coffee ground bags. Her expression was one of commiseration, though Marigold noticed a level of confusion hidden in the woman’s astute hazel eyes.  She was begging for clarification about the whole situation, but was too polite to ask about it.

Marigold shrugged and turned away to face the wall. After all, _she_ hardly knew what was going on, either. All she knew was that Tom Hiddleston was a spoiled, entitled brat, and she, in an angry rush to leave that morning, accidentally left her phone behind for him to find.

And, in a quirky, irksome turn of events, he had pocketed the phone rather than being a sensible person by handing it over to Juliet. That would have been simple. Easy, even. What any normal person would have done, so Marigold could quickly retrieve it after traveling all way back from south London after a meeting—way out of the way of any train bound for Cambridge.

But he hadn’t. Then, to top it all off, he hadn’t left any way to get in touch with him. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, as she had no problem walking the half mile to his house to pound on the front door until he gave it back, except for the fact that it became immediately obvious he wasn’t at home.

Nor did he return home during the hour she sat on the curb waiting for him like some crazy stalker.  Fuck. Someone had even called the police on her loitering.  She couldn’t really blame his neighbors; she probably would have called on herself had she realized she’d started pacing back and forth, muttering about how she was going to wring Tom’s perfectly handsome British neck. This was Glenn Close in _Fatal Attraction_ -level stalking as far as they were concerned.

Fortunately, Sergeants Connolly and Frisk were both sympathetic souls and didn’t arrest her or request psychiatric evaluation, though they both looked upon her with no little amount of pity. Not—Marigold grumbled—the kind of pity that spoke of understanding the acute pain associated with losing one’s phone and having to deal with a goddamn shithead like Tom Hiddleston. No, this was a different sort.  One that was more appropriate of a normally-functioning person visiting the sickest member of a state psychiatric ward. That uncomfortable, yet truly-worried-for-a-loved-one’s-sanity pity.

_Ring._

Hiddleston was lucky she hadn’t resorted to hexes or curses yet, or he’d have been in a world of hurt.  But, she figured, if Luke continued ignoring her call, there was no telling what both of them were in for once she pulled out Aunt Violet’s grimoire.

Finally, there was a click and silence. Marigold held her breath, thinking she had been ignored or it was switching to voicemail. She almost jumped for joy when a soft, lilting feminine voice said, “Luke Windsor’s office, this is Caroline.”

“Hi, Caroline,” Marigold said, clearing her throat in an attempt to remove any attitude from it. “May I please speak to Luke?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Um, it’s Marigold Locke,” she replied.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Locke,” Caroline replied, “Luke doesn’t take unsolicited calls. May I take your number and message and I’ll leave it for him.”

Marigold pressed her forehead to the wall and closed her eyes, trying to convince herself not to pound her head against it a few times. “Is he in the office?”

Caroline coughed lightly. “I’m sorry, I really can’t—”

“Look, Caroline,” Marigold replied, “it’s been a really crappy day because Tom Hiddleston is a complete shithead.”

Caroline let out a derisive chuckle. She was already convinced of Marigold’s madness, and honestly, Marigold couldn’t blame her. “Get in line, lady. Do you know how many calls I get—per day—about him from crazy girls?”

“Please. I’m begging you. He took my cell phone at the cafe this morning and I can’t get in touch with him. I’ve been to his house and he’s not home and I’m literally—”

“Oh, you were the one hanging around his gate,” she said. “Don’t worry, they notified us about it.”

What? Did the cops have a network and report in to Luke when things like this happened?  

There was a muffled sound in the background on Caroline’s side, then a deep voice.  Marigold’s gut clenched. It was Luke. If she could just somehow get his attention. Screaming at the highest possible level so that he couldn’t help but hear her over the phone was a viable, but unadvisable option. They’d only call the cops on her again, this time only to end up in a padded room.

“Who is that?” He wasn’t speaking into the receiver, but it was close enough to be heard clearly.

“Excuse me,” Caroline said, then there was silence and awful techno hold music.

Fortunately that only lasted two seconds; the line picked up and a breathless, “Marigold!” filled her ear.

“Luke, thank goodness!”

“I’m sorry about my assistant,” Luke replied. “She’s a bulldog because she has to be in this line of work.”

Marigold sighed. “I’m just glad I got to you. Do you know what your shithead client did?”

“What’s the problem?”

“Hiddleston stole my cell phone this morning and I can’t find him to get it back,” she replied. “You already know I waited by his front gate, clearly, according to Caroline.”

“That was you?” he laughed. “Sorry about that. It’s protocol after a few close encounters.”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “Look, I only lucked out because I left your business card in the bag I have with me today. Otherwise I wouldn’t be calling. Would you please call the idiot and have him meet me at his place? The cafe I’m at is closing.”

Luke paused on the other end of the line where he made no sound.  What? Was he thinking?  Finally, he asked, “How did this even happen in first place? He didn’t make any indication that he wanted to see you again.”

“All you need to know is that Tom is a jerk and I need to get my cell phone back before seven when my train departs King’s Cross.”

“I’ll call him,” Luke replied. “You can go wait at his place.”

“They’ll call the cops again.”

Luke sighed. “Use the new gate code. It’s #4971. The keybox by the front door hasn’t changed.”

“I love you,” Marigold replied, pumping her fist into the air. “I’ll be waiting for him.”

“Please don’t do anything insane when you get in,” he said.

She shook her head for her benefit. “I won’t. Thanks and goodbye.”

Marigold pulled the phone away from her ear and adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder as she turned to look for Juliet. The woman was there waiting for her with an outstretched hand.  Glancing around the cafe, Marigold realized everyone else had left.

“I’m so sorry, Juliet,” she said.

The woman grinned and shook her head. “I’m just glad you got it worked out. I’d be lost without my mobile.”

Marigold quickly said her farewells and left the cafe for the short journey back to Tom’s house.  When she arrived and let herself inside the gate, she noticed the same black Jaguar parked beside the house that been there before, but it had moved slightly. She curled her fingers into fists. Murder wasn’t out of the question, now. Not if he’d been at home the whole the time and simply had ignored her.

Or worse, had called the cops himself.

She found the key and stuck it in the lock, but the door pushed open without having to turn the knob. The smell of something savory and amazing immediately filled her nose. Seething rage filled her belly and clawed up her throat. That idiot _had_ to be inside cooking… probably laughing his ass off at her expense.

Marigold shut the door behind her and made as much noise as possible as she stepped into the main room. “Hiddleston! I swear to the gods if you’re in here I’m going to murder you!”

“Excuse me?”

The low, masculine voice and creaky floorboard made her spin. It wasn’t Tom, but the man definitely looked like Tom. Or, more apt, Tom looked like the man, considering his age. And though the gray-haired man looked briefly perturbed at her indecorous entrance, his face suddenly softened into confusion.

“Violet?!”

Marigold recoiled as though she’d been slapped in face. Only this slap came with no small amount of psychic disturbance, at a level she had not, before that moment, ever experienced. It was déjà vu and deja vécu all rolled into one.  She’d known this man, but didn’t know him. She didn’t think so, anyway. The only thing she understood was that the hair on her arms had raised and her skin was hot and tingling in the strange way that—even after thirty-four years of living with her certain abilities—still hadn’t become second nature to her. And, in fact, had only grown more intense since she’d moved to England.

She gulped some much needed air into her deflated lungs. _Had_ she met him before? “Violet was my great-aunt.”

“Wait, you’re not Marigold, are you?”

He removed the tiny square spectacles covering his eyes and squinted as he wiped the lenses with the bottom of his shirt. Then he replaced them.

“I _am_ Marigold, but I don’t believe we’ve—”

“Da! That daft woman I was telling you about is coming over. She’s—”

Marigold turned as Tom lumbered into the room, weighted down with two bags of groceries in each hand. To his credit, he silenced immediately the moment he noticed her glare.

“Daft, am I?”

His lips flattened into a firm line.

Marigold scoffed at his silence. “I’m not the one who stole someone’s cell phone—and then didn’t leave a way to get it back!”

The older man behind Marigold cleared his throat. “What the bloody hell is going on around here? Thomas, first you’re on about some troublesome woman and then the last person I expected to see shows up…”

“I think I’m confused,” Tom said.

Marigold sighed. “I think I know your… dad? You _are_ Sir Bloaty Head’s father, right?”

Sir Bloaty Head’s father nodded. “I see you’ve made a fine impression on her, Thomas. It’s Jim, by the way.”

“Would someone please explain what’s going on?” Tom said, echoing his father’s earlier question.

“Here I thought this woman was going to be some monstrous being, the way you described her,” Jim said. “She looks like a harmless fairy to me.”

Marigold grinned. So he _did_ know Violet, and the rest of her family. Actually, he knew quite a bit more than the average acquaintance. The connotation, however, flew right over Tom’s considerably-sized noggin.

“Harmless until provoked, that is,” she replied. “And I have been provoked.”

Tom groaned and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned unburdened by his groceries. “No one is answering me!”

“Do you remember Dr. McMahon, Tom? The nice lady from Cambridge I worked with on several patents for her naturopathic treatment schemes?”

Marigold relaxed at the fondness in his voice for her great-aunt. Violet was a kooky old lady who defined the very notion of witchery—modern or historical. She wore black clothes and hung pentacles around her neck, kept to herself, and danced naked under the full moon.  Frankly, Marigold was surprised her aunt hadn’t ever taught herself how to fly a broom just to freak people out.

But most of all, she was renowned for her healing—all the women in her family were gifted with that particular trait—and didn’t subscribe to most of the tenets of conventional medicine despite her respected position within the scientific community.

Tom’s father really knew Violet, and spoke of her in a friendly way. Nothing could have made Marigold happier, except, perhaps, bludgeoning Tom with a cast iron skillet.

Tom finally spoke. “Dr. McMahon? The batty old lady that brought ‘round the lemon cakes in the summers?”

Jim nodded. “Marigold is her grandniece.”

“No!”

Marigold chuckled, sharing some rueful delight in his mouth dropping open and the aghast wonderment that passed across his face.

“It seems she takes after Violet a bit.” Jim looked to her for confirmation, as though ascertaining if the likeness only stretched to physical attributes.

“In many more ways than looks,” Marigold replied.

Despite the fondness he’d had recalling Violet, the somewhat coded confirmation of her other similarities seemed to make him draw back and regard her with a little more care. Marigold always hated that reaction; it was why she made a habit of keeping those _other things_ to herself.

Jim, after looking her over again, finally turned to his son. “It just so happens that you and Marigold have met before.”

“I would have remembered if we’d met,” Tom blurted out.

Marigold rolled her eyes. “The feeling’s mutual, trust me.”

“It was both before you were old enough to remember. Marigold and her mother, Camellia, came to spend the summer with Violet when Marigold was about a year old,” Jim said. “Which would have made you about two, Thomas.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Tom said.

Marigold bit on her lip. She’d spent practically every summer in England from her first birthday until she graduated high school. But she didn’t remember her aunt ever visiting with Jim. Or Tom, for that matter. “I spent a lot of summer’s here, though, and I don’t remember…”

“Oh, dear, we really didn’t stay very close after that summer,” Jim said, his face falling a bit. “Your aunt’s work took her to working with Dr. Raji, but she always stopped by on Midsummer’s Day with a cake.”

Marigold _did_ remember being left at Violet’s cottage the morning after the celebrations of Midsummer’s Eve that stretched into the early morning hours the following day. In fact, Marigold knew she was impossible to awaken even on a regular morning, much less one that followed a night of ritual and dancing and food. Violet had never told her why she left for a few hours, or who she visited.

There had to be a reason for her silence, but what was it?

A soft metallic ding filled the silence between them. Jim jumped a bit and smiled. “Ah, dinner’s about ready. Marigold, won’t you stay?”

She glanced at Tom, who looked less than pleased with his father’s invitation. “I really just need my phone so I can get back to King’s Cross for the train up to Cambridge.”

Jim shook his head. “At this hour? It’ll be dark in a bit.”

“It wouldn’t be my first trip at night,” Marigold said. “I promise I’ll be fine.”

“Nonsense, lass,” he replied. “You’ll have dinner with us! I insist. Then we’ll figure out how to get you back.”

Fighting with Jim was a losing battle, though mostly due to the hunger gnawing in her belly and the delicious smelling food in the kitchen. And, honestly, she was interested to learn more about Jim, about his association with Violet, and why she’d been kept away from the family after only one visit as a baby.

“Wonderful!” Jim clapped his hands together and turned to his son. “Lay out another setting, Thomas, for the lady.”

Jim turned on his heel and went to the kitchen. Tom mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘lady my arse,’ but his spine straightened and he glowered at her with no little amount of conceit.

“Tell me the truth,” he breathed. “Did you know?”

“Know what? Know about my aunt and your father?” Marigold asked. “Absolutely not.”

Tom frowned. “I find it highly convenient that you showed up in my life like you did and you had no clue about our connection.”

“It’s called Fate,” she replied.

“I don’t believe in that stuff. It’s silly and illogical.”

Marigold laughed and walked over the circle of sofas and chairs. She dropped her bag onto one of the cushions, turning to find him watching her—eyes roaming her body from her head to her toes. He was studying her more closely now that she wasn’t, in his eyes at least, an inconvenient gnat buzzing around his head. Or maybe she was still a gnat. But he definitely let his eyes linger.

“ _You_ may not, but Fate believes in you.”

He stuck his hand into his coat pocket and withdrew her cell phone, holding it at arm’s length.  His fingers clamped around the screen, preventing her from taking the device when she reached for it.  Marigold looked up at him in confusion.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m going to figure out what game you’re playing,” he said. “And when I do—”

Marigold ripped the phone out of his hand. “There’s no game, and I’m sorry for whoever turned you into such a distrusting, condescending _prick_.”

Tom’s father cleared his throat immediately after she’d let the last word fly. Tom seemed pleased with himself, as though he’d shown her true nature and that was enough to make Jim turn her out of the house.

Instead, Jim glared at his son. “Tom. Plates. Now.”

Tom shuffled into the kitchen with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas, and made sure to slam a cupboard door while he was searching for what he needed.  

Marigold coughed into her hand. “I’m sorry, Jim… I didn’t…”

He waved his hands. “Judging from what he’s told me, he probably deserves it.”

“I need to step out for a minute and give my friend a call to tell her I’ll be late.” Marigold didn’t wait to be excused and barreled as quickly as she could out the front door, closing it behind her.  Then she gulped in the crisp dusk air and counted backwards from ten.  She _wasn’t_ going to strangle him.  She _wasn’t_ going to hex him.

Yet.

There were several texts and missed calls, but she bypassed them to quickly call Asha.  Asha picked up on the first ring, worry lacing her voice. “Where the heck are you?  I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a very long story.”

“Are you on the train, at least?”

Marigold sighed. “No, I’m still in Hampstead. I’m having dinner with someone and then I’ll be back. If it goes too late, I’ll just find a hotel room and stay here for the night.”

“With who?”

“Huh?”

“Who are you having dinner with?”

“I’ll tell you about it when I make it back to Cambridge.”

Asha yelled as Marigold hung up, but the last thing she wanted to do was suffer Asha’s abuse about running into the Great Bloody Arsehole again.  Because, mostly, Asha hadn’t believed for one minute Tom Hiddleston was anything but what he portrayed in interviews. Little did she know.

Marigold slid the phone in her own pocket for safe keeping and grabbed for the door handle. She paused, taking just a moment  longer to clear her mind and gird herself for the dinner ahead. One thing was for certain: Hiddleston had better watch himself or a fork was going to end up somewhere unpleasant.

That thought, at least, put Marigold in much better mood.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU! Seriously, thank you! I won't be responding to each of the reviews from last time, but know that I've read them and I can't really say how much they make me smile. You're awesome to follow me on this different-for-me story. Thanks!

Somehow, dinner progressed to pudding. And pudding led to tea and coffee until ten that night.

If he hadn’t been so suspicious of Marigold’s intentions, he might have actually enjoyed learning about her life.  He might have found it a little interesting that she graduated with honors from Harvard in art—he had been unaware that Harvard had an art programme—and had worked her way up through the ranks of many publishing houses’ design departments. He might have even taken particular interest in her new job in London as a newly minted art director, or the overly involved horticultural hobby that she and his father had talked about for the better part of the night.

He especially might have liked hearing how her childhood was remarkably similar to his—mismatched parents, a divorce, and being shuttled back and forth between houses, though she traveled from New York to California regularly when he merely went to a different Oxford post code.

He, however, refused to be fooled. Something wasn’t right about all of this, and he was going to figure out what it was. But even four hours into the night, he was no nearer to an answer. What was more, he found himself slowly forgetting about his mission to out her.

He had to give it to her. Whatever she was doing enchanting the other people in his life, it was working. But he refused to be swept up in her bright smile or her sunny disposition. Or, if he had to admit it, the almost endearing way she found some amount of sarcastic humor in everything.

Most of all, he marveled at her ability to let it all slide off her back like nothing mattered. How she was able to be in the moment and enjoy it despite any seething contempt she might have held for him after the mobile incident. She wasn’t normal. No one could forgive and forget that easily, unless it was all an act to gain entrance into his life… into his head… and into every waking—and dreaming—thought.

Which made him all the more uncomfortable.

And just when he thought the torture of not knowing was going to end, it didn’t.  In fact, it got worse when his father suggested Marigold stay the night rather than head for the Cambridge-bound trains.

Marigold glanced at the large watch on her left wrist and pursed her lips. “I really ought to go, Jim. You’ve been so kind, and I’m sure Tom wants to get rid of me.”

At least she could read body language well enough, even though she ignored it more often than not, probably to torture him. That was worse, though. She knew she was causing someone else discomfort and still sat across from him nursing her third glass of wine.

Tom leaned forward and set his own wineglass on the low table in front of his knees.  He’d probably had more than he should have of the potent pinot noir. It might have clouded his judgment. It certainly played a part in allowing her to stay as long as she had, because it had relaxed the tension clenching his shoulders and back enough to make dinner bearable.

“Nonsense,” Jim said. “I’m sure Thomas can offer you something to wear tonight and then he can drive you up to Cambridge tomorrow.”

“Da—”

His father cast him a cutting look, though not the most censuring of the evening. That came after Tom had insinuated that he detested Yanks like her. Which he didn’t. He liked everyone.  Well, everyone but Marigold.

“After all the trouble you’ve caused Ree, it’s the least you can do.”

“No, really, it’s okay,” Marigold said and began to stand up, reaching for her bag. “I’m fine. Really.”

Tom groaned. Ran his hands through his hair until it stood on end. If he didn’t do this, his father would harp on his discourteousness. The last thing he wanted to do was give his father _another_ reason to start random fatherly lectures every day for what remained of his holiday before returning to Scotland.

“Stay.” The word left Tom’s mouth in a command more than it did an entreaty.

Marigold crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, Tom, I don’t want to put you out.”

He sighed. “I have the room. You should stay.”

But he was definitely locking his bedroom door again.

She nodded and sat back into her seat, returning to her previous conversation with his father.  Eventually, his father excused himself for bed with a command to make sure Marigold was taken care of, and left him staring at the vexing woman in silence.

Marigold shifted in her seat. “So, I’m really exhausted after traipsing all over Hampstead looking for you. Is it alright if I head off to bed?”

He held his hands out. “Be my guest.”

“I suppose, then,” she said with a wicked smile, “it wouldn’t be good form to take the master bedroom?”

Tom sucked in a breath. Chewed on the inside of his cheek. He refused to flip out on her; it had to be a playful jab. However, he took the opportunity to clarify something. To, he hoped, allay some of his suspicions.

“Not if you don’t want to share the bed with me,” he replied.

Marigold snorted indelicately. “Not if you were the last man on earth, and my only other option was a bed of spikes.”  

And he believed her. For the first time since he’d met her—and definitely since he found out about their prior connection—he felt he knew the truth. The utter revulsion on her face at his innuendo couldn’t be faked.

It gave him pause, though. He hadn’t wanted to deal with her.  Or have to sort out anything if she truly were an insane fan playing a game.  But now that he had visual confirmation of the fact that she clearly wasn’t interested in him to make a name for herself—at least in any sexual or relationship aspect—it troubled him. _Why,_ exactly, it was so bothersome completely eluded him.

None of it made any sense at all, especially because he still didn’t feel right. Frankly, his head ached trying to understand it. Maybe he was tired. Maybe a good night’s sleep would clear it up.

She cleared her throat to gain his attention. “Jim said you might have something for me to wear? I’d really appreciate it so that I can put this top and jeans in the wash tonight.”

Tom harrumphed. “Is that all you brought with you? You were wearing it the other day.”

Marigold looked down at herself, then up at him. “You’re paying attention to what I’m wearing and when?”

He pressed his lips together. Answering would only incriminate him. Yes, he’d looked at her body. More than once. He refused to offer fuel for her fire.

“All my clothes are still in the shipping containers at the cottage,” she replied. “I have what I brought in a suitcase, so I’ve been wearing and washing the same five days worth of clothes for two months.”

“Ah,” he replied.

She chuckled. “Honestly, it’s getting kind of boring.”

Tom stood from his seat and rubbed his hands together. “Come on. I’ll find you something.”

Marigold followed him quietly down the hall and hesitated at the master bedroom door.  When he turned to look for her, she was resting a hip against the doorjamb, with her arms crossed over her chest.  She almost looked… unsure?

Impossible.  

Tom rummaged through the bottom, left most drawer in the mahogany chest of drawers on the far wall of his room.  He found what he was looking for—ladies pajama trousers with pink hearts and one of his old shirts.

“Dare I ask who left behind a pair of women’s pjs?” Marigold asked. “I mean, unless they’re yours and you just like wearing them…”

“And if I did?” he asked, a brow rising in challenge.

She shrugged. “More power to ya.”

“They’re my ex’s,” he said. “Not that you need to know.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

Tom shifted uncomfortably and thrust the clothes out to her, practically begging her to take them out of his hands.  The situation had become strangely intimate, and he needed to get her out of the room and lock the door.  He had to protect himself.

“They _are_ clean, though?” she asked. “It would just be really weird, not that it’s not already weird that you keep your ex’s pjs…”

“Yes.” Tom yawned into his hand. A genuine yawn, not one he faked to get her out of the room.  But it did the trick.

Marigold picked absently at the fabric of her borrowed nightclothes and held them to her chest. “Which bedroom?”

“Dad’s in the one across the hall. So the one next door to mine is open.”

“Okay,” she muttered and turned on her toes.

He reached for the door with the intent to shut it, but she stopped him halfway when she paused and looked at him. “Tom?”

“Hmm?”

“I really do appreciate it.” A soft smile stretched her lips. “Sweet dreams.”

And then she spun away toward the guest bedroom, leaving him to contemplate the sudden and completely unwelcome warmth filling his chest.

* * *

Marigold lay staring at the ceiling as muted black and gray leaf shapes rustled and danced in the silvery moonlight.  The sound of snoring—faint but even and deep—came from one of the other rooms, though she was sure it was Jim, not his son. Tom Hiddleston was too vain to snore, even though it was an involuntary process.  He probably did something to stop it from happening, perhaps through sheer force of will alone, lest his poor fragile ego be injured from someone commenting on the habit.

He was such a conundrum, that one. One minute he was spitting fire at her, accusing her of some nefarious plan… and the next he seemed to be a somewhat decent human being. It practically gave her whiplash.

She’d always been able to get a good read on people fairly quickly. Not with Tom. He was a block wall. Maybe a void, like a black hole, sucking any power he could find out of her like a vampire. Or, at least, he put up a strong enough barrier between himself from the world for protection, especially when he wasn’t sure about another person.  She figured it was probably a good trait to have, seeing as she’d always been such an open book and had been hurt countless times because of it. But that didn’t make it any less vexing that he was impossible decipher.

But still, even the most difficult people were at least open in some tiny regard. She could always find something to work with. Tom Hiddleston wasn’t.  He blocked. He deflected. He did little smoke-and-mirror tricks here and there to redirect attention.  How he acted in interviews—at least in the ones she’d read and watched—must have been exactly how he wanted to be seen. He wanted to be in control, and any thought that something might be getting out of control threw him off his game.  It was almost sad to learn that extended to his normal, camera-free life, as well.

Nevertheless she refused to feel any sadness for him. Not after the way he had behaved. He didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t _earned_ it.

Marigold groaned and disgustedly threw the covers off her legs. She wasn’t going to get any sleep with thoughts of him filling her mind, so what was the point in trying? Besides, the bed covers were too hot, though without them she got chilled. The pajama pants itched and, though the old shirt was clean, it somehow smelled like a man. It smelled like him, or at least what she thought he smelled like. She hadn’t been close enough to really get a good whiff.

She tiptoed out of the room and down the hall in search of her computer bag. Since she clearly wasn’t going to fall sleep any time soon, she figured a little bit of light reading would work.  And seeing as she planned to read the packet of legal business documentation Nik had given her that morning, it’d probably eventually bore her to sleep.

She could hope, anyway.

Marigold intended to take up residence on one of the plush couches in the sunken reading library in the rear of the house, but she stopped, instead, to look at his book collection.  Some shelves were stacked two deep. More books were piled neatly on top of each other in five stacks on the floor, waiting for a more permanent home in another shelving unit if their owner ever got around to installing one.

An idea hit her, like a bolt out of the sky. The insatiable need to do _something_ other than stare at the ceiling or try to decode legalese mixed with what remained of her annoyance from earlier in the day.  She was a woman possessed as she slowly, deliberately, moved one row of books aside, refilled the empty space with another row, and then put the first row in the new location.

She cackled quietly and clapped her hands together. It felt so damn _good_ to get back at him.

Knowing Tom’s control issues, she guessed he had taken a lengthy perusal of the bookshelves after she left just to make sure she hadn’t lied about moving anything out of place.  She hadn’t; books were sacred and she didn’t ever mess with them even though she gave each one a good dusting.  She respected them and the importance they held in someone’s life.

She did not, however, respect the owner of this library. Well, she didn’t _now_.

Marigold worked until she moved each section to a new location. Stacks from the floor found homes in open shelves where the previously shelved books now lay on the ground.  Would he even notice?  And when? Would it be later, when he was all alone and went to find his well worn and time-honored Shakespeare volumes? Or would he take one look at in the morning and freak out?

For some twisted reason, it thrilled her, this game. If he was going to accuse of her playing one, she decided to make it worth her while.

She stood back and surveyed her work, sweaty and slightly out of breath from the physical labor. It wasn’t exactly obvious that things had been moved, but a few brightly colored spines poking out of rows were noticeably in different places. He probably wouldn’t even notice it until he needed a book—or went to put one away. It made her feel better, though. She might eventually forget about him, but at some point down the road, when he least expected it, she’d finally get her revenge. And he’d never, ever forget about her.

Totally worth it.

A yawn burst uncontrolled from her mouth. The sudden weight of exhaustion dropped onto her shoulders and made her eyelids heavy. Marigold grabbed her computer bag anyway and settled onto one of the nearby couches.  She sunk deep into the velvety leather and stretched her legs out before digging into her legal paperwork.

It immediately put her to sleep.

* * *

Tom woke with a start, but it wasn’t from a nightmare or a loud sound. It felt, instead, like anxious urgency, deep in his gut, pulling him out of bed and forcing any sleepy fogginess out of his head almost instantly. Like he should be doing something that he wasn’t, or had overslept an appointment and he was in danger of completely missing whatever he was supposed to get from it. Which was completely illogical, because he had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do for two months.

The clock on his mobile only bore worse news—only five-thirty. Way too early to wake up unless there was a reason. However, he couldn’t force himself to stay in bed so long as he was wide awake. He was a man of action. He had to move. He had to do something.

Thinking a jog might help, he quickly pulled on his running kit and stepped quietly into the hall. His father, the champion snorer, rattled the walls with a particularly loud inhalation, but Tom was particularly glad to know that Marigold wasn’t adding to the dissonance. Why, exactly, he didn’t know. He planned to wash his hands of her after he left her in Cambridge. They weren’t going to be sleeping in adjacent rooms or even in the same bed together after today. The fact of her snoring wouldn’t matter or ever pose a problem for him in the future.

When he finally walked into the main room, his eyes immediately fell on the couch nearest his bookshelves. Papers had fallen on the floor and fluttered everywhere. Marigold lay motionless on the cushions, clasping other papers to her chest as she slept. She looked so innocent. Harmless.

But he was slightly uncomfortable that she hadn’t stayed in her bedroom all night. In fact, she had wandered about until she settled on the couch and fell asleep. That was weird. Wasn’t it weird? It felt weird. Maybe it wasn’t. Lord knew he’d spent many nights on the same couch after falling asleep reading or wandering because he had too much on his mind.

Tom sighed and stepped over to the mess she had made, bending over and piling papers on top of each other. He tried to read what they said, but he got as far as “business incorporation information” and his brain shut off. He’d rather watch paint dry than read something like that. No wonder she’d fallen asleep reading it.

As he reached for the papers nearest the couch, Marigold stirred awake and tossed an arm over her eyes. She yawned, smacked her lips, and swallowed down a parched throat.

“Hi.” It was so soft, he barely heard it despite standing so close to her.

“Uh, hi?”

She briefly lifted her arm to look at him, blinked, and replaced it. “Ugh. What time is it?”

“After 5:30.”

“Lordy. Three hours.”

“Huh?”

She yawned again. “I only got three hours of sleep.”

“What? The bed wasn’t comfortable enough?”

Her arm slid away from her face.  She blinked again, then squinted and blinked her right eye repeatedly. “Ouch.”

He didn’t ask what hurt. He almost didn’t care. Operative word being “almost.” It bothered him that he _did_ actually care about what was bothering her. How’d that happen, anyway?

Fortunately, she saved him from thinking too much about it. “My contacts are killing me. I usually don’t sleep in them.”

He sat carefully on the end of the couch, drawing the papers together in a neater stack. “I have some solution and an extra case if you need it.”

“That’d be wonderful!” she said. “And your bed _was_ comfortable. I mean… not _your_ bed, but the extra bed was comfortable. I just couldn’t shut my brain off last night. And then there was the snoring.”

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from his belly. “Da has always been very good at it. I use earplugs when he visits.”

When she didn’t respond, he turned to look at her again. She wasn’t blinking and trying to fix a contact this time. Instead, she stared at him with a peculiar intensity. Marigold finally grinned.

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “That’s the first time I’ve heard or seen you laugh around me.”

Tom scowled. She threw a pillow at his head. He deftly blocked and deflected it to the ground behind them.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m just saying it’s nice. And you should smile more.”

He rolled his eyes. “I smile all the time.”

“I don’t know,” Marigold said as she pulled her legs up and shifted into a sitting position.  The old shirt he had given her hung low on her neck, revealing the curved profile of one full breast.  He blinked and turned away when he realized he staring at it.

Tom sighed. “You don’t know what?”

“I haven’t seen you do it since you got home, for someone who supposedly smiles ‘all the time’.”

“Maybe not when I’m around you.”

“Why, though?” she asked. “Smiling and laughing and being natural seems a whole hell of a lot better for you than being an arrogant stick in the mud all the time.”

He shrugged. “I don’t trust you.”

“Maybe you do, you’re just not letting yourself believe it’s so easy to trust me.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Is it? I’m a very trustworthy person if you pulled your head out of your ass and took a few minutes to get to know me,” she said. “I’ve been told I don’t really give off that intimidating vibe.”

“Well you make me uncomfortable.”

Marigold stood and stretched her arms over her head. He closed his eyes and willed away the image of her nipples—hard from the drafty room and likely the soft skid of the fabric over her breasts—outlined beneath the thin shirt. To his horror, his mouth watered. He licked his lips. The only saving grace was that he wasn’t looking at her directly. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.

“But why? You haven’t given me any concrete reason—anything about _me_ that would prove to another person that I should make you feel like that.”

“I just got this feeling.”

She pressed her lips together and hummed. “Like what?”

“Why would I tell you?” he asked. “That is, if I don’t trust you.”

“Just humor me? A little?”

Tom glowered. What would it hurt? She wasn’t going to blab anything to anyone. And if she did, he’d still be covered under the NDAs she had signed. “I guess you just rub me the wrong way? I can’t explain it. I get this odd sensation in my belly and my skin feels prickly. It’s usually how I feel when I’m anxious about something or in a bad situation.”

“Is it your intuition?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

Her lips stretched into a small smile. She seemed to understand something more about it than he did, but he didn’t ask her why she looked so smug. Frankly, he didn’t care.

She surprised him, though, when she said nothing else about it. He saw the need to explain herself flash across her expression, but she stopped herself. Bit her tongue. She changed the topic entirely. “Anyway, Tom, I’d really love that contact solution now, please. My eyes are killing me.”

The conversation effectively over, he sighed and stood from his seat to find what she needed, the jog he had intended to take completely forgotten.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am late, late, late as always. I am profusely sorry for the wait. But the hiatus I took was good so I could focus on some personal things. I hope, above all hopes, to have another new chapter up soon now that life is returning to a new normal. Thank you for sticking around, even with all the craziness that has become this fandom of late. Enjoy!

****Spring seemed to have fully sprung when Tom finally stepped outside his home later that morning. The sun shone a little brighter and the greens in his front garden had to have been more saturated with color. Birds chirped merrily in trees and he felt good, despite being obligated to drive a strange woman home to Cambridge.

The troublemaker in question was waiting for him outside while he finished getting ready. She had busied herself by crouching in front of a withering plant with a few sprays of small purple buds.  Healthy weeds encircled the bush despite its puniness; despite sitting among the new life blanketing the soil, it had ceased to thrive. Maybe it was already dead. Or, at the very least, on the downward slope to death.  

Marigold didn’t immediately acknowledge him although he stood beside her, hoping to communicate wordlessly, and through stiff body language, that he wanted to leave as soon as possible and she was impeding that objective. He started to clear his throat, but stopped himself when she moved.

Her thin, nimble fingers stretched out and pressed into the dirt at the base of the fading plant, pushing dirt moist with morning dew toward the main stalk, inspecting its surroundings and foundation.  She hummed to herself—a pleasant tune he didn’t know—and then spoke a few words he didn’t understand, though he wasn’t sure if it was because she said them so quietly or because they were a foreign language. For all he knew, it could have been gibberish spoke by a madwoman.

She lovingly stroked a delicate bunch of flowers in front of her face. “This is a beautiful little lilac shrub. Such a heavenly perfume, too. Sometimes lilac is too strong when it first blooms, but it’s just perfect.”

“It’s dying.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “It just needed some love.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Do you plan to sing love songs to every one of my shrubs, or can we go?”

Marigold marked her disapproval with a glare and a scoff. “Maybe _you_ should take time to connect with your own flowers.”

She was insane. Absolutely barmy. Connecting with his flowers? Like they would talk back? Or that he was capable of developing some sort of relationship with them?

“Maybe then you wouldn’t be such a bumtwaddle,” she finished.

“Bumtwaddle? That’s a new one.”

“I’m only getting started.” She stood and brushed her hands off on her jeans. “The way I see it, I’ve got at least another hour to think up some more.”

“Joy of joys,” he groaned. “Get in the car.”

Marigold wasted no time walking by him for the awaiting vehicle; he almost missed the exaggerated eye roll.  She smelled like lilacs and spring sunshine. It was alluring and enchanting. He did everything in his power to forget the scent immediately—as well as the way her hips swayed as she walked. It was a trifle inconvenient after vowing to regard her with a wary eye.

Tom followed her into the Jaguar where she cleansed her hands with a wet wipe she had pulled from her bag. It smelled of lavender. “Is everything you own coated in lavender?”

“No,” she replied. “Why?”

“My bathroom still smells like it.”

Marigold shook her head. “It’s a wonderful cleansing agent. And I use it in baths at night to put me to sleep.”

And that was exactly not the vision he wanted in his head. What disturbed him most was how ridiculously easy it was to picture her naked and sprawled out in the large oval tub in his bathroom, relaxing in the warm water. She probably looked quite fine all wet.

Tom coughed and shook his head, reaching for the ignition switch.  He refused to consider the possibility further. Absolutely no good would come from such introspection. Still, he couldn’t deny how effortless it would be to let his mind dance down such a treacherous path.

“It’s quite good for soothing and calming,” she added. “You might try it. It’ll relax you. You won’t be such a blowhard, then.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” He pulled past the gate and onto the street. “I don’t need to smell like a woman.”

Marigold laughed. “I can make you something so it’s not as noticeable. There are other oils you can use. You strike me as more of a bergamot and sandalwood type guy.”

“I thought you said last night that you didn’t do the herbal medicine thing,” he said.

“Oh, not for scientifically sound medicinal research like Aunt Violet,” she replied. “But I do use the fruits of my gardening for my own personal use. I created a very limited line of cosmetics and bath products. I handmade and sold them at weekend Farmer’s Markets back home. Soaps and lotions and such. I’d be doing it here, but I have to build up my garden first. I only use what I can find locally.”

She paused, inhaling a breath.

“But you probably don’t care.” She closed her mouth and pressed her lips together, focusing on the world passing them on the street.

Finally, there was peace. However, as much as he wanted the blessed silence to last, it was also strange. The quiet didn’t feel right. Not in that “we just met and we’re uncomfortable and have to fill the space with words to forget our discomfort” sort of way. But more because he felt compelled to learn about her; knowledge was power and if he had it, he was sure he could solve why she bothered him so.

At least, that’s what he quickly told himself to disabuse any other notion he might have.

“Where am I going?” he asked. “You never said.”

“M11,” she replied. “Hatley St. George.”

He frowned. “I thought I was taking you into Cambridge where your friend’s home is.”

Marigold shook her head. “No sense dragging you that far. And I need to check in at the cottage. The renovator said flooring was complete and they’re waiting for the inspector to sign off on my move in. Really, I just need to see it with my own eyes. The way I left it a few days ago, it’s hard to believe my slow-as-molasses renovator is actually finished.”

And that was where they left it, once again dissolving into silence as he made a turn for the motorway.

Hatley wasn’t an incredibly long distance from the university, but it was in a less densely populated area. One he, unfortunately, knew well.  An old uni girlfriend had dragged him on a nature hike in the town’s adjacent protected ancient woodland while he’d been at Cambridge for his undergraduate.

All he remembered from that trip was a raging hangover after a night at the pub in Hatley, and the nasty reaction to stinging nettles he suffered after stopping to take a piss on a trail head. He’d sat on a boulder for a rest afterward, nursing a terrible headache and feeling quite nauseous. Next thing he knew, he woke up face down in a pile of nettles with his girlfriend screeching at him.

Until that point, and even after, he had never experienced such excruciating pain.

Every muscle in his body clenched just thinking about it. “You’re not anywhere close to Buff Wood, are you?”

“Actually, yeah,” she said. “You know it? My cottage is right on the south edge.”

Good, there _was_ a reason she rubbed him the wrong way. He’d equate the annoyance she caused to that of a nettle. Forever.

“You mean your aunt’s cottage was that old craggy looking thing?” he said. “It looked like some fairytale witch cottage.”

Laughter burst from her lips. “Yes, she lured small children into her house, fattened ‘em up and cooked them.”

“Well, the only time I ever saw her was when she brought over lemon cake in the summers.” For all he knew, that was exactly what she was doing.  Fortunately for him, he could never keep the weight on, thereby bypassing any ovens.

Marigold’s mirth died away and she sighed again, turning to look out the window at the green countryside on her side of the motorway. She cleared her throat. “I miss her terribly.”

Her admission blindsided him. He didn’t expect the sudden gravity, or the fact that his heart clenched at her obvious grief. It was only a little pinch, not a full on squeeze, but it was there. And it was completely unwelcome.

“I got so caught up with building my career in New York, I didn’t get over here nearly enough when she became ill,” she continued, clearly uncaring if he heard. Sometimes he thought she simply enjoyed the sound of her own voice.  

But he still asked her, “What did she die of?”

Marigold picked at the hem of her shirt. “She refused to find out. She was old, eighty. Said it didn’t matter. I guess it didn’t, except for those who miss her the most.”

“She was a doctor, though. She didn’t have any idea?”

“I think she did, but she didn’t care to put a name on it,” she replied. A rueful smile stretched her mouth. “Violet always said she gave a piece of herself to heal all of her patients, and eventually it was bound to catch up with her. It’s enough explanation for me.”

Tom nodded. “I suppose that’s true, for anybody who is in the healing profession. Da was like that. But he sacrificed his family instead of his health.”

Marigold shook her head. “Don’t beat your dad down. I’m not giving him a pass, because I know what it’s like when a parent neglects the family, but it isn’t because he didn’t care for you or your sisters or mum. It just happens. I’m sure you’ve neglected a personal life, too, in favor of your work.”

“That’s why I don’t make a habit of getting into serious relationships. It’s just one less worry on my mind.”

Marigold scoffed. “So the rumors _are_ true, then. No time to put into a relationship, completely committed to the work?”

“Maybe if the right one comes along I’ll think about giving her more of my time,” he replied. “But why would I want to put anyone through that shit when I’ve seen firsthand how it’ll end.”

She turned and stared at him for a long minute. “You’re very cynical in real life.”

“I’m practical.”

“No, it’s cynicism.”

“I’ve tried it before. I have. I have the heart pajama bottoms you wore last night to prove it. It’s just not worth taking my mind off the work when I can have my needs met in other ways.”

She chuckled. “A paragon of gentlemanly behavior.”

“I’m not an arse,” he defended. “I just lay it out on the table. They can accept it and stay for the night, or not and leave.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason it didn’t work is because you didn’t _want_ it to work? Maybe you’re creating your own block?” Marigold grinned, needling further. “Actually, that seems to be about right. I mean, considering what I know about you.”

The last thing he wanted to talk about was his love life, particularly with her. But he was a captive audience,  and she devilishly good at pulling words out of him even when he didn’t want to speak. “You know nothing about me.”

“I know enough,” she said. “I know I’m actually a pretty fantastic person, and yet you’ve got it in your mind that I’m some leech trying to suck the life force out of you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’d like you to stop talking about it.”

Marigold shook her head. “See? You’re doing it again.”

He cut her a firm glare.  She didn’t shrivel, but she did clamp her mouth shut and pointedly looked out the window.  He did the same and focused on the motorway, driving for the next half hour in tense silence.

Finally, electronic mobile ringing filled the space. She reached into her bag and withdrew the device, looking at the caller identification on the front.

“Olly! Hi!” She didn’t bother to look over at him. “Oh, no, I’m on the way up. I was stuck in London overnight.”

Tom distinguished Olly’s voice— _his_ Olly’s voice—through the mobile, though it was too garbled for anyone to understand unless it were pressed to their ear. What the devil was he doing calling Marigold?

“You’re there?” she asked. Listened. “No, I’m not on the train, I don’t need a lift from the station. Tom gave me a ride.”

Olly squawked.  Tom imagined it meant, _“What?”_

“You don’t even want to know what happened yesterday.” Marigold glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “He probably doesn’t want me to tell you, anyway. But if I were a nosy person, I’d talk to Luke. He’ll fill you in.”

More rapid, indistinguishable talking on Olly’s side.

Marigold laughed.  And laughed some more. Until it turned into tears. Then she said, “God, no, I couldn’t ever imagine sleeping with him. I mean, have you met him? He’s a bear!”

“I’m sitting right here,” Tom intoned. He attempted—though failed, ultimately—to hide the disgust in his voice. He couldn’t stand her, and now she was calling his manhood into question. Could it really get any worse?

“Oh, now I’ve gone and done it,” she replied. “He’s turning red.”

Tom set his jaw and stared at the road ahead. The signs for Hatley were increasing; he couldn’t wait to divest himself of his ever-present headache.

“We’re about ten, fifteen minutes from there,” she said. “Yeah, great, we’ll see you then.”

Marigold terminated the call, slipping the mobile into her pocket instead of her bag.  She sat quietly with an amused grin on her face for the rest of the ride. Part of him wanted ask what left her so amused; was it the fact that she refused to ever consider sleeping with him, or had Olly somehow betrayed some secret in another way?

He hadn’t mustered the strength to bring it up before he pulled to a stop in front of the respectable country cottage. With a sigh of relief, he placed his car in park and looked up at the building.

The house itself had completely changed from the way he remembered it. Gone was the cracked plaster siding. In its place was refurbished brickwork, with new windows and the rotten wooden casings repaired. Other holes in the plaster were filled in and patched, bright and dazzling, making it look like it had been built that way, and not a slapdash repair. The old wood-shingled roof now boasted expensive looking earthy-colored tiles, protecting the house from the slight misty drizzle falling on it. The architects and builders had done a remarkable modernization. Now it was a quiet, beautiful country house. Nothing about the exterior made him worry about being cooked in a cauldron for dinner.

But with Marigold, he wouldn’t put it past her.

Olly stepped out the front door; behind him, Jess—Olly’s best friend—poked her head out.  She looked quite happy to be there, her straight white teeth grinning maniacally at him, clearly ready for some good ribbing at his expense. Jess never let anything go to his head and it always seemed like she found him to be just a tidge ridiculous. Or, at least, found his “persona” to be so, and let him know it whenever she had the chance.

If she weren’t already married, he would have thought she’d be a good fit for him. A good foil to his, as Marigold called it, natural cynicism. She was strong, smart, and particularly easy on the eyes. He’d fantasized, more than once, how he’d like to see every inch of her dark velvety skin, then carefully map it with his fingers. Now, he realized, he didn’t care. Well, at least about seeing Jess without her clothing.  His mind was on other things…

And other women.

God, had it really got so bad? Was he really that fickle?

That peculiar other woman, in particular, was already out of the car and welcoming Olly with a hug. A great big bear hug—no less—with cheek kisses, like they were old friends, and hadn’t just met at an awkward breakfast a few days before. Olly quickly introduced Jess and Marigold. Jess bobbed her head up and down, her trademark short springy curls bouncing with the movement. Then they were gone, inside the house to do who knew what.

Tom took that as his opportunity to get out of the car and harangue his personal assistant about getting too close with the enemy.

Olly stared right back at him and offered an incredulous laugh. “Oh, you’ve got it bad.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, okay,” he replied.

“I asked why you’re here.”

Olly rolled his eyes. “Um, well, my uncle Kieran builds houses, if you remember.”

Tom vaguely recalled that information.

“It’s alright,” Olly said. “You never listen to anything I say anyway, so I’m not hurt.” Tom distinctly got the impression that Olly was, in fact, hurt. Tom’s stomach turned as Olly continued. “Anyway, after Ree and I got to talking about her issues with getting the cottage done, I offered to put a call into Kieran so see if he could help speed it up. He did.”

“Okay—”

“And Jess is here because she’s been looking for referrals for her interior designing. I offered to get the ladies connected,” Olly finished. “Now that that’s out of the way, I think you should tell me how and why you came to be driving Ree up here.”

Tom gazed down at the juvenile manboy in front of him, straightening his back to make himself appear taller and pursed his lips sourly. “I’ll have you know, she spent the night.”

Tom left his assistant’s side—Olly standing on the front drive with mouth hanging open—with just a little bit of satisfaction filling his body. If everyone else was going to make jokes at his expense about anybody sleeping with him, he thought he was well within his right to do the same. Reclaim some of the power from them, no matter how good natured the jesting might have been.

Strangely, though, he didn’t feel all that powerful. Especially as a sudden, inexplicable compulsion overcame him. It tugged at his body, pulling him in the direction of the front door, further and further away from his car and London. All he wanted to do was turn around and go home. Forget about Marigold once and for all.

Instead, he followed his feet straight into the cottage in search of the little canker-blossom. Maybe she could explain why he didn’t want to leave just yet.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, all! Enjoy! 
> 
>  
> 
> _Notes about the magic and witchcraft: I have researched a lot about traditional witchcraft, Wicca, and other pagan paths and combined it all into this story. I’ve also added some further “magic” into the story, that may border more on the Harry Potter than the strictly real spiritual paths that exist in our real world. I am not, however, anywhere close to an expert, and I’ve taken a little more than what you might call “artistic license”. What I hope comes through is my respect for the practices, even when I may not get things exactly right._

The amount of relief that washed over Marigold, upon finding her home mostly completed, could not be calculated in numbers, nor could it be accurately described in words. Frankly, she was thankful the light at the end of the very long, very arduous tunnel no longer looked like a pinprick, but like a wall of windows—complete with a sliding door—leading out into the back garden.

Marigold stood in front of the doors, watching the foreboding black clouds rolling in over the ancient wood, answering questions for Jess as she dutifully scribbled notes on a notepad. “Yeah, I’m really just going for neutral. Stuff that I can add accents to and completely change the look of the room if I want it.”

Jess wrote some more. “What is your budget?”

“I’m not really dealing with one,” Marigold replied. “I mean, I don’t want to go crazy. Maybe mid-grade stuff. Not luxury, necessarily, but—”

The front door opened and both women turned to look at the intruder. She expected Olly—not Tom. In fact, she thought Tom planned to hightail it back to London as soon as possible. After the way he carried on, it was the only reasonable expectation.  But, to her absolute consternation and surprise, there he stood, surveying the workmanship of the crown molding and probably judging it with his judgy arrogance.

“Uh, yeah,” Marigold said, clearing her throat. “I’m really pretty open. I want things that are going to last. Things that are sturdy and built well, so no flimsy IKEA furnishings that’ll collapse in a few years.”

Jess stuck her pen behind her ear and pointed a finger outside. “Good, good. Do you want me to do exterior, as well?”

Tom finally met her gaze from across the room, but didn’t linger long before he disappeared in the direction of the dining room and kitchen. How dare he, anyway? First he acts like a complete knob, and then he thinks it’s okay to wander around someone’s home without giving him leave to do so? Sure, she didn’t actually live there yet—but the nerve! Especially considering how she had been treated at his home.

“That’s fine. Hey, hold on a minute.” Marigold held up a finger and left the window, making a beeline for the kitchen.  There she found him opening the oven door. “You should stick your head in there and see what happens.”

Tom backed up and unfolded to his full height. The oven door shut with a tight snap. “The gas isn’t turned on yet.”

“So you just go traipsing around in strange places without permission?”

“I was unaware I required permission,” he replied. “Olly and Jess have been—”

She scoffed. “You are not Olly _or_ Jess, are you?”

“Well, no,” he said.

“Good, now that we have that sorted.” She waved her arms around her, only stopping when she placed her hands on her hips. “You may go look around if you want. Don’t go in the cellar or the attic. They’re both still a mess.”

The immediate mischievous sparkle that filled his eyes made her cringe. She’d practically given him carte blanche to snoop in places she didn’t want him; clearly, he was the type of man who did the exact opposite of what he was told, or, at the very least, still did things however he wanted.

The attic wasn’t really bad; it was full of furniture she planned to have Jess refurbish and use in decorating the house.  The cellar, however, might cause a problem. It looked like a stereotypical medieval witches’ dungeon—complete with a giant cauldron… not because they actually used the cauldron any longer, rather more because all the women of her family who owned the property before her had wicked senses of humor.

But, she figured, if curiosity ended up killing the cat, then she’d never have to deal with his prissy arse again.  She was just fine with that.

He left the kitchen and bounded upstairs two at a time. Marigold groaned when she heard the door to the attic creak on its hinges.

“You’re a goddamn menace, Hiddleston!” Marigold yelled, standing at the foot of the stairs and looking up toward the landing.

Jess stepped into the foyer amid the resulting silence. She laughed. “Olly wasn’t kidding about you guys.”

“About us what?” Marigold asked. “That I loathe him?”

Jess’ dark eyes squinted. A smirk pulled the left corner of her mouth up. “Yeah, let’s operate on that principle.”

“I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”

Jess shrugged her shoulders and spun around, quickly changing the conversation to draperies and valances, though Marigold remained suspicious. It wasn’t a complex puzzle to solve what Jess and Olly were trying to get at, but she absolutely refused to believe that a mutual distrust of each other really translated into something else. Even _if_ that little piece of her that intuited these things fairly regularly—the same one that had started when they’d been talking in his bedroom about pajamas and had kept her up half the night—was now pinging with some insistence.

There was no way in hell.

Marigold pushed the ludicrous idea away and focused on discussing the work to be done inside the house.  They were nearly done when Tom returned from his survey of the upper level and stood at the entrance to the living room, his shoulder propped on a door jamb as he listened.

Marigold found it difficult to pay attention, so she turned her back to him. “Um, so yeah, you have no idea how much I appreciate you dropping everything and coming up here. I’m already a month behind where I thought I’d be, and my job starts next week. And my dad is headed out, too. I have very little time to focus on this.”

Jess grinned. “I’m just glad for the opportunity. I’ve been doing so many corporate offices lately, this is a nice respite. The only thing I really need you to do is approve my designs—”

“And find a bed.” Marigold laughed. “Seems simple enough. It’ll be nice to actually have my own bed. Though, I have to say, Tom’s was quite nice.”

She delighted in the spluttering that came from his throat. She didn’t have to see the contempt on his face. It radiated off him. And Jess’ reaction was enough confirmation of her suspicions.

Jess, for her part, withheld the guffaw twitching at her lips. She turned her head and coughed into her hand. “You and I are going to get along really well, Ree. Really, really well.”

Marigold finally spun around and looked at the man. “Hey, Tom.”

He didn’t move.

Her next questions were out of her mouth before she’d fully thought them through. “I know you probably want to get home, but could I borrow you and your car for a few more hours? I mean, since you’re already up here?”

The words hung in the air, somehow corporeal in form. She opened her mouth again to quickly wipe away the moment with some other jab at him—to shift his attention to something else. Whatever had possessed her to blurt out her request, though, prevented her from saving the situation. In fact, it felt strangely as though someone or something had sewn her lips shut.

His shoulders stiffened as he squared his posture. To her complete surprise, he refrained from frowning, despite her taking such a liberty. She supposed, however, that he didn’t have any room to complain at this point. _He_ chose to stay and look around the cottage when he could have left and been nearly halfway home. Almost in the same way _he_ chose to take a second too long considering her body with that strange masculine awareness earlier in the morning.

Tom rubbed his right hand over his jaw, the sound of the scruff like rough sandpaper in the otherwise quiet room. Only Olly yelling something at his uncle outside the front door broke up the sound. Tom sighed. “Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it’s going.”

“You deprived me of my bed by throwing me out of your house,” Marigold replied. She knew she should stop. She sure as hell felt the shaky earth beneath her as she ran—no, sprinted at top speed—headlong into more unnecessary awkwardness. “Turnabout is fair play, right?”

 _In for a penny, in a for a pound, apparently_.

“First of all, I didn’t throw you out,” he said. “Secondly, I let you finish the night out in my bed. And lastly, you never asked to stay.”

She grunted. “Yeah, because you were ever inclined to let me stay.”

“I might’ve, had you said what was really going on with this place.”

Marigold couldn’t believe her ears. Tom “I’m the King of My Privacy” Hiddleston letting a strange woman stay in his house for another week when he’d said, flat out, that he didn’t trust her? It was poppycock. Was he trying to make himself look good in front of Jess? Keeping up appearances certainly hadn’t stopped him from being a jerk yet.

But what did she expect, anyway? He would have never needed a defense if she’d just kept her mouth shut and made other arrangements to go buy a bed.

He must have sensed her confusion, or felt his own. “Why are we even arguing about this?”

“I don’t know. Why is everything an argument with you?”

“With _me_?” He scoffed. “Are you kidding? You’re just as bad.”

Contemptuous laughter bubbled up her throat. “Because you make it too damn easy!”

“Children, please!” Jess wedged between them, holding her arms out like a referee preparing to penalize a football team for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct. “Olly can ride back with Tom, and you and I, Ree, can take Olly’s car to go shopping, if you like.”

Tom took a step forward and shook his head. Marigold shifted from one foot to the other under the unexpected and foreboding weight of his glare. “No, that’s fine, Jess. I’ll take her.”

“Puh-lease,” Marigold pooh-poohed, trying to pull her own attention away from his piercing interest. “It was a harebrained idea, anyway. Jess, I’ll—”

“No. No, no,” Tom said. “Clearly, you want me to go with you, so I’ll go with you. But just so you know, there will likely be tweets and photos and stories about a mystery girl with me going bed shopping and you’ll have to deal with the trouble and pain that comes with it.”

“What? You think that’s what I want?”

Tom shrugged, a rueful snigger escaping him. “I don’t know? Maybe it is. But you’ll see. You’ll see what a bitch it really is when you’ve got faceless women tearing you down for being seen with me, and stupid gossip blogs printing salacious stories, dragging your name through the mud. Do you really want to deal with that when you already, apparently, can’t stand me? I know _I_ don’t want to deal with that shit when I’m already have enough trouble dealing with _you_.”

“Wow,” Jess said, “you’re really jumping to conclusions, there, Tom. Things might not be like that.”

“I don’t know if it will,” Tom replied. “But when it happens—and it probably will—you’ll want to put as much distance between us as possible and then we’ll both get what we want. But it’ll be a million times worse for both of us.”

“Then why don’t we get this over with right now?” Marigold asked, stepping closer to him, though she was careful to remain at the edge of his personal space bubble. Or, at least, what she perceived to be enough room for adequate personal space.

She underestimated him. In his ire—perhaps blindly, but it seemed very purposeful, as if to intimidate—he stepped closer to her, neglecting the imaginary bubble between them, until they stood toe-to-toe. Marigold hadn’t really noticed how tall he was, nor how large and imposing he could make himself, until that moment.

She wasn’t scared of him; never had she been worried for her safety, despite the first few minutes of that night he’d rolled into bed with her. It was more discomfort—a sudden awareness of the man, the maleness, and the heat from his body. And, more accurately, realizing she truly hit a nerve this time. A deep one.  One he didn’t reveal often, but she had finally scraped away enough of the carefully constructed veneer to see him. _Really_ see him.

What she found floored her. Unguarded and open, he was a font of passionate energy. Fiery temper and something else—heartache?—lashed her, hit her square in the chest.

“Unless,” she breathed, watching his face, “you don’t _really_ want to get rid of me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I like to keep my friends close, but my enemies closer. Don’t flatter yourself or think it means anything else.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Marigold spat.

So, then, why did it hurt to hear him say it?

She turned away from him and focused on Jess, hoping he would get the hint and leave the house. If not to go home, at least to give her some space to breathe.

He didn’t move.

“Sorry, Jess,” Marigold said. “Do you, uh, want to head upstairs and discuss what we need to do up there?”

Jess silently—blissfully—bobbed her head; she followed behind Jess toward the stairs in the foyer.

Marigold, however, didn’t get far. Long fingers, strong and unyielding, encircled her arm and pulled her backward. It wasn’t a harsh tug, but firm enough that she wasn’t likely to slip out of the grasp without some focused force of her own.

Of course, that meant she’d have to be capable of producing something more than the strangled whimper that dribbled from her mouth. As it was, she could barely think straight after the alarming jolt that shot up her arm to the furthest nerve endings within her body.

She’d often read romance novels that spoke of metaphorical electrical surges and fireworks when the hero and heroine touched; she, on occasion, felt that sort of thing with other people. But those shocks, the ones that came with the excitement of touching and feeling and carnal animal attraction, were never like this. Those were fun and giggly. They created a flock of flapping butterflies in her belly.

This was entirely different. Like a lightning bolt had shot straight through her arm. Hadn’t the clouds outside looked dangerous? She even, in her astonishment, glanced at the ceiling to make sure there wasn’t a hole where an errant electrical charge might have snuck through. It almost hurt; it stole her breath, arrested her heart for a split second.

It wasn’t good, whatever it was.

He dropped his hold on her immediately and stepped back, clenching his hand into a fist.  Shook his arm. She made sure he hadn’t burned a handprint into her skin. He hadn’t, but she could still feel the outline of his hand as though it had fused to her arm.

“Ree!” Jess called from the upstairs landing, jarring the silent, unexplainable moment. “Are you coming up here? What are you doing?”

Marigold cleared her throat and took a marked step away from him. “I, uh, I’m fine. Sorry, I was just thinking about—”

_What?_

Marigold huffed. She hadn’t been thinking about anything particular, and the residual discomfiture from what should have been a simple touch seemed to have taken away her ability to lie. Or, at the very least, the ability to stretch the truth. It wasn’t like it was easy to explain what they’d shared, especially knowing it probably had something to do with this cottage and the latent magic within its walls. That it was psychic in nature, and she had no clue what it meant.

“My aunt,” she finally finished, grasping at the truth. Violet would have known what happened, but she wasn’t around to ask.

“Your aunt?” Jess laughed. “Why?”

Marigold whirled around, leaving Tom standing in the middle of the room. “Oh, just how she would be yelling at me for taking the charm out of the house.”

She paused at the base of the staircase, placing one foot on the first step, and glanced back at Tom. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets, but hadn’t stopped staring at her.

“I think we can still keep some of what you have up here,” Jess called back. “How do you feel about rustic or shabby chic? I know it’s so Pinterest-y, but it’ll really look awesome with this old furniture.”

Marigold laughed. “I mean, whatever. I think the country-ish look works since, you know, we’re out in the country…”

Jess’ pleased giggles floated on a breeze from the upper rooms.

Marigold drew in a deep breath and let it out, steadying herself before she ascended the stairs.  With one last glance at Tom, she left him standing in the middle of the room with a look of utter confusion. She hoped he didn’t expect an explanation, because she had no idea what happened.

She did not, however, hear him shut the door as he stepped outside. Nor did she hear the telltale purr and growl of his Jaguar’s engine as he raced out of the front drive and onto the street.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'm very sorry for the wait on the chapter. I wish I could update more quickly, but this is the way the writing life is for me right now. I endeavor to try again with the next chapter. Thank you for reading! Enjoy!

Marigold’s arm still throbbed seven hours later, but not as much as her head did. After an afternoon of hard work and confusing thoughts riddling her mind, she wanted nothing more than to fall into a soft bed in a cold, dark room and wait until the headache subsided.

But it wasn’t to be, not least of all because of the work yet to be done—Jess had tasked her with sanding down a few tables in preparation to repaint and refinish them—while she waited for Asha to finish her lectures for the day and drive all the way out to Hatley to retrieve her. Not to mention that fact that her over-reliance on people with vehicles had become tedious and more than a little problematic. It made the need for her own set of wheels imperative before long, adding yet another task onto a mile-long To Do list. Cars, though, would wait for another day or two. She hoped.

Around six that evening, working by a bright white floodlight provided by Olly’s uncle, Marigold conceded defeat from extreme fatigue. Not sleeping much the night before plus the problems with Tom and all the physical labor finally coalesced. She felt like she’d run headlong into a brick wall. Or, at least, had participated in a marathon she had not properly trained for.  She finally sat down on the front stoop with a bottle of ice cold water—thank the gods for a working refrigerator—to watch the pelting rain while she waited for Asha.  

While quietly watching a family of hedgehogs navigate slowly across the wet earth, an inexplicable wave of nausea overcame her.  A cold, clammy chill clawed up her spine; her vision blurred. Her head bobbed, as though she were fighting sleep or because it was too heavy to keep upright on her shoulders. It wasn’t drowsiness, per se, but a sense of extreme weight, somewhat like trudging through a lake bottom thick with goopy silt, pushing forward at full strength, but meeting so much resistance it exhausted her in a second.

Out of nowhere, the pungent taste of liquor filled her mouth. _Whiskey._ She knew the taste, but she hardly ever drank it; she certainly had never craved it. Nor had she ever become ill from imbibing too much on any bacchanalian pub crawl. Hell, that even included the heavy drinking she had done at some sabbats. But that didn’t stop her insides from wanting to become her outsides as she evacuated whatever was in her stomach.  She swallowed and sipped her water before running the cold bottle along her forehead in an attempt squelch the roiling in her belly.

Then, just like that, in less time than it took to snap the fingers, the sensations and taste ceased, leaving her confused and weak, but also incredibly suspicious of their source.

Dreams had always been her preferred method of spirit work and divination. In fact, the visions and spirits often came unannounced and when she was the most unprepared, just like the sudden appearance of Dream Violet telling her to move to England. Other times the hair on her arms lifted and intuition kicked in—though never so strongly as it had in the past week.

Now she felt it. Tasted it. Lived it.

It was like some sort of witch puberty. She was growing. Changing. Coming back here, to the home of her ancestors, to an untouched ancient wood teaming with energy and magic, had pulled the power from her personal hiding places. Forced her abilities to come to life. Made the powerful energy palpable in ways Marigold had never expected or experienced.

Perhaps, even, reignited the mostly dormant embers burning within her, after years of trying to ignore and evade it back in New York, where she’d tried living a normal life surrounded by her father’s family—the family who just didn’t understand anything that wasn’t in a Bible.

Of course, they were a good family, even tolerated her herbalism and her occasional, somewhat bizarre, ability to lay hands on the afflicted and heal them. They thought it was a gift from God; Marigold didn’t know. Maybe it was. But the moment she tried to equate “God-given healing powers” with “magic”, she lost them. So she mostly kept to herself, practiced with herbs and sporadically with spells and charms and rituals, but had ignored everything else bubbling inside her for the better part of ten years.

She was paying for it; the dam had burst and continued to overwhelm her with new energy—potent, breathtaking energy—on a daily basis. Maybe she should have paid better attention to the teachings when she spent summers out in the forest. Sometimes she wished Violet was still around to explain these things to her, but even her dream visits were riddles meant to be pulled apart. Clues were given but never explained, and it was only in hindsight when it finally made sense.

Marigold yawned and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the wall next to her. What was Violet trying to say now? Why had there been that shock? Why did her arm hurt? And why the hell was Tom Hiddleston a part of her life? Why did she need him, anyway?

Her thoughts carried her into a meditation, lulled into a wakeful rest aided by the rhythmic patter of rain on the oversaturated earth. She didn’t move until she heard a car crunching on the gravel drive and the brakes screeching to a halt.

The rain had picked up, now pounding the ground with every drop, but Asha’s red Ford Fiesta was easy to see in the darkening dusk. Asha rolled down the window a crack and yelled for her to get in.  Marigold dove into the passenger seat and let out a long sigh. Fortunately,  she was not the type of witch who melted when wet.

Marigold looked at her friend. “Hi.”

Asha cast a sideways glance at her and pursed her lips. “Did you sleep with him?”

“What?”

“Did you sleep with him?”

Marigold was dumbfounded.  Offended. “We haven’t seen each other in two days and the first thing you ask me is if I slept with him?”

Rain tapped relentlessly on the car roof in the resulting silence.  Asha turned to her. “Well, did you?”

“Fuck, no!” Marigold groaned. “I told you already.”

“I know, but I thought maybe you didn’t want to say anything over a text or something,” Asha said.

“I told you the other night that he was a pompous jerk.”

Asha shrugged. “Sure, he could be a pompous jerk, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to ride that train at least once. Especially since you’ve had more than one chance.”

Marigold scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Can we go, please? The rain’s getting worse. I’m starving. And I need a drink.”

Whiskey sounded good. Really, really good.

“This conversation is so not done.” Asha turned the car around and carefully eased onto the road from the gravel driveway. “You know I wouldn’t be so incredulous if you had just told me last night who you were having dinner with.”

“You’re kidding, right? I’m pretty sure you’d be ten times worse right now.”

Asha laughed and bit her lower lip as she squinted through the rain-glazed windscreen. To her credit, however, she said nothing else about it. Asha would bring it up as some other inopportune time—a time when it was least expected, as all best friends with an elephant’s memory seemed to do.

“Do you want to wait until we get closer to Cambridge for dinner, or do you want to stop in town?”

Marigold shrugged, but her stomach gurgled and growled on cue. “Staying in Hatley is fine. The Good Witch Pub is just up the way.”

Asha nodded. “Good. I didn’t really want to get closer to the university. If I see one of my students tonight I’m going to scream.”

“Why?”

Her friend sighed and shot another long glance at Marigold. “Some toff decided he was going to complain to Mumsy about the marks I gave him on his practical research. Mumsy’s a big donor, so I’ve been reassigned.”

“That sucks,” Marigold replied. “I always thought Cambridge had higher standards than that.”

Asha nearly drove off the side of the road when she let loose a cynical, snorting chuckle. It wasn’t pretty, but Marigold figured it probably made Asha feel better. “Cambridge is no different than any American university. Maybe it’s _worse_ because the students are so doggedly British and studious that they can’t accept any of their own academic shortcomings. At least at Harvard it wasn’t a secret that some people got in on money and status alone.”

“What, like it’s hard?” Marigold replied in her best Elle Woods impression. It wasn’t successful, but Asha laughed anyway, easing the tension in the car and turning the conversation to the weather and how it was literally raining cats and dogs.

The drive into Hatley was fairly easy, but the pub parking area was practically empty. Not strange for a rainy weekday night. Most anyone in their right mind would elect to stay home and out of the weather lest they needed an ark to return home.

There was, however, one vehicle in particular that stood out to her. A tall, lanky man stood outside the driver side door, wobbling on his ridiculously long legs like a newborn fawn. Marigold’s stomach sunk to her toes.

His keys were in his hand, but he didn’t seem to have the ability to insert them into the lock. Why he didn’t try to use the automatic unlock button on the key fob was beyond her. The keys fell from his fingers into the puddle beneath him and sunk deep into the dark water. She pressed the back of her head into the headrest and squeezed her eyes shut.

“This isn’t happening right now.”

“What?” Asha asked, grabbing for her purse in the backseat. She was oblivious to the man teetering about the parking lot.

Marigold grabbed Asha’s chin and moved her head until she looked out the side window. Asha squinted and ducked down for a better view. Realization dawned on her face. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes.”

Asha pressed her lips into a thin line. They both watched in rapt attention as he did some sort of ungraceful fall-kneel down into the puddle and patted around the water for his key. “He’s absolutely pissed.”

“No kidding.”

He found what he was looking for and lifted the wet key ring to eye level to sort out the key situation. Finally finding the one for the car, he swiveled on a knee and fell on his ass, directly into the puddle. What was more, he didn’t move, slumping against the car until he rested his forehead against—what she imagined—was cold metal.

Asha tossed her purse back in the backseat. “We can’t leave him like this.”

“Why not?” Marigold asked.

“Because he’s pissed and trying to get into a vehicle. And just saying that he somehow gets that thing started—”

Marigold groaned. “Yes, yes, I know! I know! Good Samaritan and all that. But I really don’t want to do this.”

Asha rolled her eyes. “Objection noted. Do you know who to call for him?”

Marigold pulled the cell phone from her pocket and quickly found Olly’s number. Two rings later, he picked up with a quick, “ ‘Elo?”

“Your boss is currently sitting in a giant puddle, drunk off his ass, and trying to get into his car,” she said.

“Ree?”

She sighed. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“How do you keep finding him? After today—”

“I don’t know. Guess I’m just lucky.”

_Or I have really freaky powers of perception and somehow knew he’d be here._

“I’m already back in London, anyway,” he replied. “And with this weather—I’m not risking another drive up tonight.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Olly chuckled. “I’m sorry you have deal with it. I don’t know why he’s behaving the way he is. If I knew how to figure someone like him out, I’d be the most powerful man in the world.”

“Just do me a favor and let his dad know he’s safe but not coming home tonight,” Marigold said.

“I will.” There was a long pause, then another laugh. “Can you snap me a photo for blackmail?”

She scoffed. “You’re cruel.”

“Not cruel, darling. Just ruthless. That’s what this job takes.”

“I’ll have him give you a call tomorrow.”

She could practically hear his smile on the other side of the phone. “Can’t wait. Later.”

The line went dead; Marigold stared at her phone and looked out the window again. Tom hadn’t moved. His clothes, at this point, were completely sodden and sticking to his lightly muscled frame; once semi-curly hair lay flat against his head. His eyes were closed. It really was quite pitiful.

Marigold reached for the door, pushing it open. “Let’s do this.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Asha saluted and got out on her side. “Where are we going to take him anyway?”

Marigold paused. “Back home with us.”

“To _my_ house?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Asha spluttered and coughed. “You’re crazy if you think my parents will welcome a strange drunk white boy into their house.”

“It’s not like he’s going to be able to do anything but sleep.”

“We don’t have the space, either. I mean, you’re in Nikhil’s old room,” she said. “You’re going to give up your bed for him?”

Marigold grumbled. “I don’t know. Where’re we supposed to take him, then? I can’t take him back to the cottage.”

“You have heat now, though,” Asha pointed out.

“Sure, of course,” she replied. “But I need a change of clothes and I need to take a shower and I need food. And I can’t get anything like that at my place.”

“We could drop him at the hospital. They can sober him up faster, get fluid in him—”

“No!” Marigold shook her head and stepped out of the car. “Then there’ll be paparazzi and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Fat raindrops pelted Marigold’s face and hair with impunity. It seemed to be slowing down a bit. For now, at least. Normally, she loved the rain—a true pluviophile in every sense of the word, from cracking thunder to misty showers—but she could find no comfort standing out in the storm, trying to decide where best to put a drunk man up for the night.

“Your parents will understand, Asha,” Marigold said. “Let’s just get him out of the rain and into the car. We’ll figure it out then.”

Asha shrugged her shoulders and sighed. Marigold took it to mean Asha knew exactly what was going to happen—and that involved convincing a pair of strict parents that they ought to allow a complete stranger into their house in such a state.

As Marigold approached the hunched form, he lifted his head and opened his eyes, meeting her gaze. Despite the cloudiness the liquor had caused, his lips turned into a frown.

“Oh, balls,” he slurred. “You’re a bloody stalker.”

“I am not.”

His head bobbed heavily back and forth, struggling to keep it straight on his neck. How much had he actually consumed?

“You’re everywhere I go, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like that,” Marigold replied feebly. Honestly, she was starting to feel like one, but it wasn’t out of any psychosis or need to be accepted by him. It was something else. Something primal. An attachment she had no control over. Not to mention the tenuous grasp she had on her own intuitive abilities.

There was, however, no reason to argue with a drunk man, especially when the sober one wasn’t willing to reason, either.

She crouched beside him. The stench of greasy pub fare and liquor wafted over her. He bled grease and whiskey from his pores.

Marigold held her hand out, palm flat. “Give me your keys.”

“I can get home just fine.”

“Can you, though?” she asked. “We just watched you try to open your car door for five minutes, and the key didn’t hit the lock once.”

He glared at her, but sniffled, somehow lessening the severity of his expression. “Go away.”

“Not until you give me your keys.”

“Where’d’ya expect me to—” he paused and sucked in a breath, head weaving again, “Where’d’ya expect me to go if not home?”

“To hell for all I care, but you’re not doing it in your car.”

Marigold reached across him and grabbed the keys dangling from his hand. Thankful for alcohol-deadened reflexes, they were easy to wrestle out of his grasp. Except, she still managed to put too much force into the movement and, in combination with the rain and using the slick car exterior for leverage, she stumbled and slid. Apparently, a wet vehicle was not an ideal place for a stable grip. Neither was a drunken, wet man.

She landed in the same puddle as Tom, her jeans immediately soaked through. The water rushed through the frayed holes on her knees and quickly traveled further north, nearly reaching her knickers. Gods, she hated wet knickers… well, wet knickers from things like this.

Tom flattened out on his back, half in, half out of the puddle, strong hands circling around her upper arms to steady her, though it was for naught.  She had no control, and he was too inebriated to do much good. Her body finally came to a rest spread awkwardly on top of him, with a mouthful of wet shirt and hard abdominal muscles. _His_ wet shirt and muscles.

Could it really get any worse?

Marigold knew, deep down, she shouldn’t even entertain the thought—it was open season for the gods to spite her. Or Fate to do it for her. But she did think it and cursed loudly as she scrambled up from the ground.

Her face burned with embarrassment. She turned to the woman gasping for breath between peals of laughter behind her. Some friend she was. “Asha! Shut up!”

“I’m—” Asha coughed, then laughed. “It’s just so—”

Asha wrapped her arms around herself and bent over in hysterical convulsions, now completely useless.

Marigold sucked in a deep breath and offered her hand to Tom, who remained on the wet pavement, looking up at her curiously. When he didn’t immediately take it, she shook it angrily. “Take my damn hand. You’re coming home with us so you can sleep it off.”

“I’m fine,” he muttered and batted away her hand. Watching him sit up—then stand up—was painful. But he finally managed to right himself on two shaky legs, with a hip resting against the car for support.

“Well, I’m not giving you your keys,” she said. Marigold took a step away from him and held her arms out at her side in annoyance. “Look, it’s cold and I’m wet and exhausted. You can stay out here all night. Whatever. But I’m leaving if you aren’t in the car in two minutes.”

Marigold shot a glare at Asha, who mostly had her fits of laughter under control, and they moved toward their car.

Tom groaned; they turned back to him. “Lemme drive home.”

“No,” Marigold said. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

He glowered. She glowered right back. He smacked the top of his vehicle with the flat of his hand in indignation.

“Get in our car.”

“What if you take advantage of me?” he asked.

The laugh that struggled out of her throat sounded more like a breathy, incensed wheeze. “Trust me, buddy, you don’t have to worry about that.”

 _Even if your muscles are quite nice_.

He groaned once more—for good measure—and took a tentative step toward them. And faltered. Marigold rolled her eyes and joined his side. She wrapped his right arm around her neck and twined her arm around his back.

“How did you even get like this?”

He huffed. “Huh?”

Marigold knew she wouldn’t get anything more from him. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

With little more fanfare, they maneuvered him into the car, which, in hindsight, was quite a feat itself. Stuffing a man over six foot tall, who was all leg, into the back of a tiny Ford Fiesta quite literally worked like putting ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.  He curled up into the seat, though, and was silent. Resentfully so—there was no mistaking the angry tension filling the vehicle as Asha started the car again.

“Just go,” Marigold murmured to Asha.

“What about dinner?” Asha asked.

Marigold’s stomach grumbled in acknowledgement. “We’ll figure that out once we get rid of him.”

Asha grinned. Stupidly. Marigold thought to insist that her friend explain what was going through her head—and what had caused such a troublesome smile—but she couldn’t talk about it. Not then… and she was fairly certain she wouldn’t able to in the future. Because, despite her complete distaste for the man sitting behind her, shooting drunken daggers at the back of her head, she felt it, too.

Or, more apt, recognized it for what it was. He befuddled her. Pissed her off. Made her want to wring his scrawny neck. But goddamn, if she hadn’t started to—inexplicably—sense something else. Something she couldn’t name, but it was there all the same. A connection. Tasting phantom whiskey on her tongue earlier was only the tip of the iceberg.

It terrified her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No excuses this time, just apologies for making you all wait. I appreciate your support! *hugs*

Tom jerked awake suddenly, and instantly regretted both the jerking and the waking up bits. His brain jiggled and sloshed about in his skull, as did the giant whiskey-coated battle ax lodged deep in his cranium.

Excruciating pain in bright white flashes shot from his head to his toes every time he moved another body part: his chest while breathing, a finger lifting, his face grimacing. Fuck, the follicles of his hair hurt. The simple task of opening his eyes seemed insurmountable—for a crust had formed along the lashes in his sleep and prying them apart required too much energy. His throat was on fire like he’d journeyed the Sahara, got caught in a massive dust storm and had no water to wash the granules of sand away.

God, what had he done last night?

As he lay completely still in the comfortable bed—he hoped it _was_ a bed, believed it to be so, if the soft sheets and thick blanket cocooning him in warmth were any indication—he searched for answers to his question. They came slowly, in fragments, but after stopping at the pub the previous afternoon, they grew hazier and more difficult to recall. Then there was nothing but black and, probably, a mountain of regrets after dropping the car keys into the puddle and kneeling down for them.

How had he made it to a bed without killing himself, or worse—someone else?

Somewhere around him, he heard faint humming and speaking, in words he didn’t understand, then a _tap-tap-tap_ on some sort of stone surface. It wasn’t metal or glass, but that thick, muddled, low-sounding _ta-thunk_ of ceramic or something like it. Maybe it actually _was_ stone? The sound wasn’t unpleasant, simply strange. Unexpected.

Of course, if he actually knew where he was—

“Oh, good, you’re up!” sang a cheery voice, not overly loud so as to pierce his aching head, but he cringed nonetheless. Because he knew the owner of the voice, and a few more pieces of the puzzle slipped back into place.

“Tell me this isn’t happening,” he rasped.

Marigold chuckled. “I see you’re in a pleasant mood. How’s the hangover?”

“It’ll be great if you stay silent.”

“You know, you’d think you’d be a little nicer to me,” she replied. “I practically saved your life last night.”

He needed water. A lot of it. But he still refused to move, lest the ax in his brain move again. “No, you didn’t.”

She snorted softly, a pooh-pooh if he’d ever heard one. Then he felt the bed beside him dip. What the devil was she doing climbing into bed with him? Did he—? Had they—?

His eyes shot open, pain be damned. She wore the same thin nightshirt she had the night he’d found her in his own bed—with nothing underneath but knickers. At least he hoped she was wearing something.  Because he wasn’t wearing anything, he realized, peaking beneath the sheets to verify his own nudity.

Marigold sat completely still on the bed and watched him fret, getting some sort of perverse pleasure from it. She had to be happy about it. He could see the devilish glint in her bright eyes.  Finally, a slow smile stretched her lips.

“Baby, you wouldn’t have been any good to me even if I wanted to jump you,” she teased. “You were so drunk.”

“Then why am I—”

“Naked?” she laughed. “Well, we couldn’t very well let you lay in bed soaking wet. Not only would you have messed the bed up, but you might have caught your death.”

He rolled his eyes, but a flash of pain stopped him halfway. Even _he_ knew being cold and wet wasn’t really a precursor to illness, unless he’d already been exposed and his immune system wasn’t working. Sometimes it was good to have a doctor in the family. It sucked when he wanted to have a lie in at home rather than going to school—his father always knew. At least with the knowledge now, he could tell that she was full of shit.

“You really don’t remember anything from last night?”

Tom groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nothing really after I dropped the keys in the puddle.”

“How much did you drink?”

“I don’t know. I started at a late lunch with an old friend at the university—then I came back to Hatley because I was going to apologize for the way I left—but I stopped at the pub and…”

Marigold’s lips curled. “I don’t believe it.”

“What?”

“That you were planning to apologize to me.”

“Wait,” he gulped. “You didn’t tell me why I’m naked.”

“Yes, I did.”

“But you—you and your friend, er…”

Marigold giggled, her cheeks turning pink.  She got up from the bed again and practically floated across the room. He was somewhat sad to find that she _was_ wearing shorts beneath her nightshirt. They were very tiny, though, and he regretted the decision to look.  She had a spectacular arse: round and smooth. Just enough for his hands to hold.

Marigold stopped in front of a desk holding a teapot and one porcelain cup painted with blue and yellow flowers. “Her name’s Asha.”

“You and Asha undressed me?”

“Look, man, I’ve seen your bits before. It’s all over the internet, okay?” she said. “More impressive in person, though, I have to say.”

He tried not to let it go to his head, though he’d have lied if he said his chest hadn’t puffed up at the insinuation.

But then she dashed the idea. “I didn’t undress you. Asha’s dad did. He’s a doctor. He undressed you and got you in bed. Made sure you wouldn’t die. You should be thankful you’re even here—he almost refused to let you come in. You really ought to thank him.”

Marigold set a piece of cloth over the top of the teacup and reached for the teapot, turning the spout until a light yellow liquid poured out of it and splashed onto the cloth.  He cringed. “Why are you straining your tea with cloth?”

“It’s cheesecloth,” she said, “And it’s easier to keep out really fine particles from the infusion. Better than a tea ball for the smaller granules and delicate flowers I used.”

“What is it?”

She set the pot down and turned to him. “Are you allergic to anything?”

He shook his head. “That’s for me?”

Marigold nodded, folded the cheesecloth up in quarters and picked it up carefully before setting it beside a large stoneware bowl. No—he squinted—a mortar and pestle. His contacts were dry and fuzzy, but he could just make it out.

“Do you have any allergies? On any medication?”

“No,” he said. “Why did you make it if you didn’t know—”

She shrugged. “Because I already knew you didn’t.”

“But _how_?”

“No matter,” she waved her hand and picked up the cup and saucer.

“I take my tea with milk and sugar,” he said.

Marigold stopped and looked at him. “This isn’t really tea. And milk and sugar would ruin its effectiveness.”

“You know I’m not really fond of tea-like drinks?”

“So help me Hiddleston, I will drop this cup of scalding liquid on your head if you don’t shut up,” she replied. “I’ve done a lot of nice things for you in the past twelve hours when, frankly, you don’t really deserve it for treating me like crap. So I’d really like you to shut the hell up and listen to me.”

He groaned and closed his eyes. She had a point, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. Tom sat up in bed, straining to sit upright without his brain falling out of his head and running away.  His stomach protested the movement, too, but surprisingly didn’t make him want to run to the toilet to evacuate the shit in his stomach.

Marigold stopped beside the bed and held the cup out to him. He watched the steam rise over the rim and curl into thin air. Should he trust her and take it? What he really wanted was a cold water. Like two bottles of it. Maybe some really strong French Roast afterward. Not strange looking hot tea.

“You’ll thank me in about a half hour when your gnarly headache goes away,” she replied.

“How do you know I have a headache?”

Her eyes twinkled. “We found you in the bottom of a whiskey bottle last night. Whenever I drink whiskey, I always have the worst hangover headache.”

“I’m not you.” He said it, but he didn’t know why he said it. Why was he even arguing with her? It almost seemed easier than being a civilized human being—what was it about her that brought it out in him?

Marigold rolled her eyes and pushed the tea just under his nose until he smelled peppermint in the spiraling steam. “Drink it. You’ll thank me later.”

Tom grabbed the cup and took a tentative sip. He sucked the hot tea between his teeth, rolling his tongue and the liquid around his mouth before he swallowed. Okay, so it wasn’t _terrible_ , but it certainly wasn’t the most palatable tea he’d ever had. It was purely medicinal. But, he admitted begrudgingly, just one sip made him feel better. Maybe it was a placebo effect—he was unaware of any medication ever working so quickly unless it were intravenous narcotics at hospital. And, as a very British man, knew the healing benefits of a good cuppa.

“What’s in it?” he asked.

Tom glanced up at her as he licked his lips.  She sighed.

She listed off the ingredients with a finger each. “Peppermint, willow bark, chamomile—”

“You put tree _bark_ in this?”

Marigold giggled. “The leaves and flowers aren’t the only useful parts of a plant, Tom. Willow bark turns into the active ingredient used in aspirin when introduced to the body. I thought you’d have more issue with the catnip I put in, too.”

He spluttered his third sip. “Catnip?”

“It’s also a pain reliever for humans, and a bit of a sedative, though not as psychedelic as it is for cats,” she explained. “With the chamomile, it might make you a little fuzzy, but it’ll take the pain and any indigestion away like a dream.”

He downed the rest of the cup, swearing he could feel the hot liquid surging through his veins and along his nerves until it all reached his head. It didn’t take the headache away completely, but it put an almost instantaneous dampener on the pain well enough that moving the rest of his body wasn’t such an unpleasant chore. The metaphorical ax no longer cleaved his skull in two.

“That stuff is amazing,” he said, when he noticed her watching him carefully.

She shrugged and took the cup from him. “It’s an old family recipe. And you didn’t have to wait for a pill to dissolve and metabolize, so that helped.”

“Can you write down what you put in it?” There were more than a few times he could use the quick relief: nights after unexpected benders or dealing with annoying, but ultimately helpful, women who showed up at the worst possible times.

Marigold laughed. “I can, but you won’t get the same effect doing it yourself. It’ll help, sure, but it won’t be as powerful as what I gave you.”

“Why the devil not?”

Her lips flattened as she turned away from him. He stared at her back, waiting for her to say something, but for the first time since he’d met her, she wasn’t freely giving her opinion or talking. It made him more curious, but even he could see the invisible wall she’d erected.

Instead, her shoulders slumped and she quickly looked back at him. “Were you really coming back to apologize to me?”

He chewed his lip. “I was.”

  
“Why?”

“Because I felt like I had to explain why I peeled out of there so quickly,” he said. “I sort of wanted to figure out what happened. I mean, I’ve never been shocked by static electricity like that before, and my arm ached after my lunch date, so I came back.”

She said something under her breath, muffled enough that he couldn’t make it out even in the quiet room.  Marigold drew in a breath and attempted a shaky smile. “So, you should probably get cleaned up. Shower’s through there,” she said and pointed to the door beside him. “Your clothes are in there, too. Mrs. Raji washed them for you last night. When you’re done with your shower, you should have another cup of this.”

“Just one?”

She nodded. “Or else you’ll start bleeding out of all your orifices. And we wouldn’t want that.”

“Really?”

“Don’t know,” she said and walked to the door without looking at him again. “But it’s best not to test out the theory.”

She left him sitting and staring at the door. He still had no answers, but a million more questions sprang to life in his head. Why was life suddenly making absolutely no sense to him? Tom growled and threw the bedcovers off his legs, intent on getting back to his car and heading home.

* * *

 

Tom felt less like a hung-over gutter creature by the time he’d finished his shower and the second cup of miracle tea.  Marigold—or whoever—had set out clean towels for him in the bathroom, along with a new toothbrush, toothpaste, and shampoo. And it wasn’t the frilly girly lavender shampoo, either, but some sort of spicy, woodsy masculine scent he found quite pleasant.

However, along with feeling more human, the feelings of guilt and shame crept in and firmly planted themselves deep in his belly, tying it in knots.  Not once in the past twenty-four hours had he questioned himself and his reaction to this whole situation with Marigold.

He’d treated her like shit from the moment they’d met, simply because he’d been distrustful of her intentions—distrustful of everyone, really. Why, though? It wasn’t like him to be as grumpy or as immediately unfriendly to new people, always affording them the benefit of the doubt. But he’d let himself go. He’d relaxed, tired of being something in front of colleagues and fans and cameras for months on end to get the job done. At the end of that came a tsunami of negativity he’d stuffed down and bottled up inside of him. He’d planned on an extended period of hermitage to recover from it, work on it and himself, but she’d stood in the way. Her appearance in his life pulled it right out into the open in the most disastrous way imaginable.

Unleashing it all on her hadn’t been fair. Maybe. Probably.

That she somehow found the ability to look past the growly bear to locate a profound and compassionate charity for him… well, he didn’t know what to do about it. What to think. How to thank her. Could he thank her, really, without sounding trite? Or it escalating into another argument? And, at the end of the thanks, could he finally convince himself that sometimes the universe worked in mysterious ways?

She certainly didn’t have to stop him getting in his car, driving home—or attempting to—and possibly killing himself or others.  She didn’t have to make sure he had a comfortable bed to sleep in, or that he got out of his wet clothes and stayed warm.  In fact, she didn’t even have to make him whatever the special tea was, or set out anything in the bathroom to help him.

She’d done it all because she was a decent person. He hadn’t been one at all, at least not without some grudging obligation.

Still, there was something there, something confounding about the way he felt about her. It was as though he wanted to be her friend—in fact, it seemed almost _too_ easy to fall under her spell, and perhaps that was the basis for his distrust—but didn’t want to. Like there was some sort of block. An invisible and impenetrable shield erected around her… around him?… that made it impossible for him to accept her.

The events of the previous night could have been disastrous, though. She’d saved him from himself. Had he survived any accident, there wouldn’t be any saving his career, or living down the negative press that would follow. It was for this reason, he figured she deserved the benefit of the doubt.

There was a lot of be thankful for this morning, despite the reason for it.

* * *

 

After he’d had enough time to self-flagellate and sufficiently wake from his hangover—though the heaviness of his limbs and the foggy haze on his brain had not completely lifted—he left the room in search of his savior.  

It didn’t take long to find her.

The stairs descended into a small foyer; she sat on a bench just at the base of the staircase, one leg crossed over the other, swinging a booted foot absently while scrolling through something on her mobile.  

She seemed different now. Well, maybe he simply saw her in a more favorable light, but he didn’t immediately want to argue with her. Maybe the hangover had robbed him of the will to fight. Whatever it was, he took a moment to look her over, from the snug jeans accentuating her shapely legs to the form fitting cashmere sweater hugging her torso. Was she vexing? God, yes. But she was also beautiful in her own sort of strange ethereal way. He couldn’t ignore that any longer.

Marigold glanced up from the screen, bright eyes meeting his face. She nodded in confirmation of something and smiled. “Feeling better?”

He nodded begrudgingly. “Yes.”

“Good, because we’re going shopping.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she replied and stood from her seat. “I planned to do some shopping today on my way back to the cottage, but you’ll have to come with me because I’m not backtracking and I need to get this stuff done.”

Tom gritted his teeth, but didn’t release his clenched jaw. He really wanted to go home. Magical tea, clean clothes or not, he needed to get back. His father had come to visit him, after all, and he felt like he was wasting precious time up here.

Marigold turned back to him, as if an afterthought. “Your dad said it was okay.”

Had she read his mind?

“You asked my dad if I could spend another day with you? That’s taking liberties a little far.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out his mobile—the first time he realized he hadn’t had it on him. “In fact, he suggested it, considering the imposition of dealing with your sodding ass last night. You can ring him and check for yourself.”

Tom contemplated the device in his hand, even moved his thumb to turn the screen on to call, but clenched his fist and then shoved the mobile into his pocket. Of course his father would say something like that. He seemed to adore Marigold.

“I’m never going to win, am I?”

Marigold slung a purse over her shoulder and reached for the front door knob. “Nope. Come on. I’ll even feed you before we get started. Because I’m nice like that.”

“Are you making pancakes again?”

“No, I’m buying you breakfast,” she said.

“ _You’re_ buying _me_ breakfast?”

She laughed. “Do you have a problem with that?”

In truth, he couldn’t remember the last time someone paid for his meal. He’d been taught, naturally, to pay for dates and for family and whenever he did the inviting with friends. He didn’t mind doing it; it was the nice and polite thing to do.  But he’d never actually had anyone offer or insist on paying for him since… well, since he’d become a Thing with a disposable income. People just seemed to expect him to do it these days.

It was refreshing. But then, there was a lot about Marigold that was refreshing, if also galling.

Tom shook his head and followed her out the door to the red Ford he vaguely remembered from the night before. The vehicle was tiny, even by European standards. “How did I fit in there last night?”

Marigold slipped into the driver’s seat. “You know how you sometimes take cooked spaghetti noodles and try to get them in your mouth, but they bend too easily and don’t go all the way in and they like land a little on your chin, so you sort of look like an idiot trying to shove the rest in your mouth without anyone noticing?”

“It was that bad?” he asked sheepishly.

“There was room, it was getting you in that was the problem,” she said.

He laughed, and, amused by the image she had created in his head, muttered, “That’s what _she_ said.”

She snapped her attention to him, her eyes crinkling at the corners in mirth. “Did you seriously just make a dick joke?”

“There were no dicks involved,” he said.

“Pity,” she murmured and turned the car on. “Buckle up, buddy. I haven’t driven in England in years.”

He reached out for the hand she had placed on the steering wheel, covering her fingers with his. “Maybe I should drive?” He attempted to ignore the sizzles jumping to and fro, from skin-to-skin, like little static electric shocks.

She batted his hand away. “Maybe you shouldn’t touch me.”

He almost agreed with her, but something forced his lips into a thin, grim line so that he’d stay silent. Should he not touch her because of the shocks? Or because she was still angry after what happened when he’d grabbed her wrist yesterday? Why couldn’t they touch? No other person he’d ever touched, in any manner, created such odd sensations in him. Why? Why did everything with her agitate him so?

“But seriously,” she said, turning the ignition on, “you need to buckle up.”

And that was that.

Silence fell between them as she fiddled with the mirrors and seat a little more. Marigold then carefully pulled out of the drive and they were away down the street—in the middle of Cambridge, he noted—for food and whatever else she had planned. He, however, couldn’t rid himself of the questions swirling in his brain, nor could he stop thinking about the fact that his life had stopped making sense the moment he’d mistakenly crawled into bed with her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

Miracle of miracles, Tom Hiddleston _could_ be a good sport… though he drug his feet everywhere they visited. It was easy for Marigold to ignore and write off as remaining hangover fatigue and not a true dislike of her. In fact, she didn’t really think he had ever actually disliked her. It was more an act he put on to keep people away when he didn’t want to be bothered.

So maybe that didn’t quite make him the best sport, but an okay sport at least, following her around to a nice breakfast where they barely spoke. Then to the housewares shop where he complained when she looked down every aisle in case she missed something on her list. Or finally, in the mattress shop, where he stretched out on a bed and promptly dozed off, much to the delight of the young sales associate trying to sneak a cell photo when her boss wasn’t looking.

Marigold figured, though, that if he was sleeping, at least he was entertained. She didn’t have to listen to any more bitching from him and could, at long last, shop in peace. Well, that was, of course, until she had tried every mattress in the store—all but the one Tom had commandeered. None of the others had suited her well enough. She held out hope for the last one. Traveling to another mattress store with a petulant thirty-six-year-old was out of the question.

With a sigh of resignation to her fate, she carefully stepped beside the bed and in the direct line of another attempted photo from the sales girl.

The associate groaned audibly; Marigold shook her head and laughed. _Funny_ , she thought; a week ago, she might have understood the girl’s interest in him. But to really _know_ him, well, that was a different story all together. Attractive though he may be, she certainly wasn’t feeling many warm fuzzies around him.

Unless she counted the weird shocks they exchanged every time skin met skin. But those weren’t “fuzzy” in the sense that she could compare it to wrapping her body in a soft cashmere blanket. Nope. The shocks stung. A lot. Like a kid who puts the head of a 9-volt battery to their tongue and gets zapped. Not a pleasant reaction, in the least. Sort of like a physical manifestation of their mutual annoyance of each other… except Marigold was smart enough to know it wasn’t just that. The dramatic nature of the reaction, at its base, could only be linked to some sort of magical energy.

She had noticed a little new age shop across the square from the mattress store; she hoped to get over there before it closed. She figured starting with a good smudge of the cottage and herself might alleviate some of her discomfort, but she needed some sage to do that. If the shop was worth its salt, then it would have what she required.

But to make it over there in time, she had to wake up the sleeping giant. A giant who was probably grumpy. _Not_ on her list of things she wanted to do.

Marigold nudged Tom’s shoulder, being careful not to touch his bare arm.  He didn’t immediately stir. On a second prodding, he shifted in his sleep and snorted a bit. Not a snore, per se, but definitely a snort. If only the fangirls new about that little issue.

“Come on, Tom,” she said. “Time to get up.”

He batted at her hand, missed completely, and rolled over, still apparently half asleep. Maybe she’d overdosed him on herbs. She was sure she followed Aunt Violet’s recipe to the letter. Even made sure to correctly measure out the ingredients rather than going by memory, as Violet would have done, having made the tea so frequently.

Or maybe he really was just that troublesome.

Marigold leaned down, pressing her palm firmly on the center of his chest to shake him again. Before she could even duck, a long arm swiped out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down and across his body.

Memories of the previous night and her slip and slide on top of him quickly filled her head.  This was worse, though. Way, way worse. Because he didn’t just stop and let her lay still in her humiliation.

No. That would have been too easy.

In his sleep-addled state and the sudden surprise of a hard body landing on top of him, he flung her onto the other side of bed with the momentum of his movements—thank the gods it was the other side of the bed and not the hard tile floor—and scrambled to stand up, or move, or something. She didn’t know what he was trying to do, the action somehow mimicking him kicking off a blanket, but it ended in a tangle of arms and legs. With labored breathing and body parts pressed where they ought naught be pressed. Shocks, too. Lots of those.

And maybe, just maybe, something she never expected to see flit across his expression.

Marigold ignored it and pushed on his chest, kicking him away. “Get off me! What the fuck! Do you always wake up like that?”

“Only when somebody comes along and tries to shake me violently!” His voice was throaty and, dare she say, sexy.

She ignored that, too.

“Well, you didn’t wake up when I tried your shoulder before that, so I had to try harder,” she said. “Why are you always such a pain in the ass?”

He rubbed his head and ran his fingers through his wild bedhead hair. “I don’t know, I was beginning to think the same thing about you.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Yeah, real mature, Ree,” he replied.

Marigold shoved him again. “I’ve tried all the other mattresses out. I need to try this one.”

The look of exasperation on his face as he scanned and partially counted the other beds in the shop was priceless. “You’ve tried _all_ of them? All what? Fifty?”

“Twenty-three,” she answered, finally moving into a comfortable position on her side of the king mattress.

“You counted them, too?”

“I was simply keeping track.”

Marigold snuggled deeper into the mattress, now understanding why Tom had conked out so quickly upon arriving. The thing was perfect. Soft and warm, like a comforting hug when laying in it. And she could barely feel him moving around on the other side. Which was good to know, in case she had someone sleep over. That someone _not_ being Tom, of course. But he was as good a test dummy as anyone else. Emphasis on the dummy part.

“Can you bounce around a bit more?” she asked.

A brow lifted in consternation. “Why?”

“I’m testing out how it feels with someone else in bed with me.”

He cleared his throat and flopped back down on the bed.  She jostled a bit, but nothing like rocking to sleep on an old sailing ship in the middle of the ocean. A sturdy bedframe would help the slight shimmy.

“Have someone lined up?”

“No, but you never know. It wouldn’t exactly be difficult to find someone nicer than you.”

Tom made a sound that could only be described as smug amusement. “I feel for any guy who has to share a bed with you.”

Marigold scoffed and lifted onto her elbow, looking down at him. Rage boiled deep in her belly. “The same goes for any woman who has to share one with you. No wonder you don’t do relationships—no one can stand you, you… you…”

Incensed beyond belief, she jumped off the bed and flipped him the bird. Sure, it was a pretty juvenile thing to do, but it was all she could physically execute, considering that her ability to form words had ceased with her choking fury. Deciding it was best to leave lest she commit bodily harm, she snapped a quick cell photo of the mattress’ product information and texted it to Jess, who would then purchase it from her furniture dealer.

Then Marigold hightailed it out of the shop, uncaring if Tom followed her. He could find his own way back to Hatley, for all she cared. The ungracious prick!

The cold wind and sleeting rain whipped at her face as soon as she stepped outdoors, but it sufficed as a calming balm on her hot nerves.  She drew in a deep steadying breath and stood on the corner of the street, pulling her coat tightly around her body. When had it started raining, anyway? And why was it so damn cold again?

Tom emerged a moment later, lifting his coat collar to the chill as he strode over to her. There he paused, staring down at her, not uttering a word. After what felt like ages, he finally huffed. A puff of steam emanated from his lips. “Ree, I didn’t mean it like that. Okay? I just—”

“You just what? You’ve made your point,” she shouted over the blare of a car horn down the street. “I get it. You can’t stand me. But the least you could fucking do is deal with it for one fucking afternoon.”

“Marigold, it’s not that,” he said. “I told you I can’t explain—”

He cut off and she snapped her attention back to him, but she felt as though she were trudging through the silty lake again, struggling to move. Time slowed down; she swore she watched each individual drop of icy rain as it fell from the clouds and plopped onto his cheeks—onto his eyelashes. He blinked slowly. The hairs on her arms prickled with electricity. A flash of confusion then anxiety tensed every muscle in her body. Finally, the fragments came, images like photographs revealed in stop-motion, of this street corner. Except they weren’t standing there. In their place was a smoking car wreck.

Marigold took a step back and grabbed his hand. Shocks of pain shot up her arm. He struggled against her—and goddamn he was strong—but she clamped her fingers around him and guided him backward toward the store and away from the street.

Screeching tires pulled her attention from his perplexed, frowning face; she turned just in time to see a speeding blue Mini barrel past a stop and sail into oncoming traffic, narrowly missing a Land Rover and skidding sideways onto the corner where they’d stood. The Mini came to a rest with a streetlamp pole embedded in its passenger side door panel, but the driver was well enough to jump out of the vehicle to harangue the other drivers for doing what they were supposed to do.

She glanced back at Tom; he looked ashen. Whiter than he already was. As though he’d seen a ghost. Or, possibly, had just been inexplicably saved from sure death by a runaway Mini Cooper. Marigold saw the confusion forming in his eyes—still large as saucers from his astonishment—as she stared, but the shock was too present for him to speak.

In fact, he didn’t speak for the five minutes it took the police and other emergency services to arrive and begin taking witness statements.

Marigold gave hers, then Tom his, but as she stepped aside to let him finish, she felt his eyes on her. Watching her closely with complete bewilderment. Also, she thought, a little bit of fright. Was it fright? Was this what Aunt Violet always used to warn her about? She’d say, _“Normal people don’t understand it, Marigold. You must be careful who knows. It’s the only way our line has survived for so long.”_

Marigold pulled her phone out of her purse and turned her back to him, refusing to let it get to her. Maybe she could just blame the car horn she’d heard; maybe she had put two and two together and didn’t feel safe having their tiff out on the street corner. But even she knew the argument was a flimsy one. He wasn’t an idiot. He also wasn’t a person prone to believing something like this could somehow be linked to magic. Tom Hiddleston was nothing if not a skeptic. An intellectual. He didn’t look without analyzing and coming to a logical explanation. If she told him the truth—would he even believe her or would it be yet more evidence to him that he should be wary of her madness?

When finally he was finished, he sauntered back over with his hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets. He stopped and looked down at her as he opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out but a long, “Uh…”

She drew in a breath. Okay. She just wasn’t going to explain it. Let him think what he wanted to think. No matter what explanation she gave him, he was still bound to misunderstand.

“I’m done with my shopping,” she said. “Can I take you back?”

Going to the new age store for some sage wasn’t going to happen with him in tow. She could explain away smudging—so many people did it these days whether they practiced magic or not. On top of what had just happened, though? Nuh-uh.

He nodded and followed behind her to the car down the street.  She drove carefully through the rain; he remained silent the entire half hour ride back to the pub to collect his car. Frankly, she began to worry that he had fallen into actual medical shock. But he was still breathing normally, even if his skin maintained the light pallor.

She pulled to a stop beside his car and turned to look at him. “Promise me you’ll go home now?”

Tom coughed into his hand, almost seeming to snap out of his daze. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m serious, Tom,” she said. “I’m not going to be around every time you need help.” Except she wasn’t so sure about that, either. Since she’d met him, she had saved him from a lot of trouble. And it was all because the connection to her magic had intensified so dramatically. In fact, he seemed to have been a huge catalyst in activating it.

A giddy, manic laugh escaped his throat. “About that—”

“Trust me,” she said. “You don’t want to talk about it. Just get out of my car and go home.”

“But I need to understand what happened back there!” He wildly swept his arms around the car. Okay, maybe it was really a temper tantrum flail. “What the fuck is happening? To me? Between us?”

“I don’t know.”

He growled. “You do too know. I can see it in your eyes.”

Marigold shrugged. “I don’t _know_. I just don’t. It’s new to me, too.”

“But you _do_ know _something_.”

She sighed heavily and shook her head, watching the pelting rain slide down the windshield glass in rivers. “Look, I don’t think you really want to know the answer.”

“There’s no way you could have seen what was going to happen back there! You weren’t even looking in the direction of the street the car was on,” he explained. “And then… then you grabbed my hand like a vice and pulled me away. You knew what was going to happen. I saw it on your face. How did you know that?”

“I just _did_. Okay?” she said. “It’s not something I can control.”

“Not something you can… ‘control,’” he said slowly, eyes lifting to the ceiling as though looking for divine intervention. He dropped back into his seat, deflated.

Marigold glanced at him. “You know the _Final_ _Destination_ movies? Where the characters see stuff before it happens?”

His lips flattened into a grim line. “So you’re saying I’m going have to keep outrunning death now?”

“No!” She burst out laughing. “No, not at all. But aren’t we all really outrunning death, anyway?”

“Touché.”

“It’s just the foresight. Sometimes I get images of the future,” she replied. “It’s all tied to my magic.”

He scoffed. “Your ‘magic’?”

“Yes, I’m a witch.”

There. It was out. She said it. All at once, the word was liberating and terrifying.

And apparently it was his turn to laugh, though he did it with extreme incredulity. “What? Like Wicca or something?”

“No,” she replied. “A _witch_ witch.”

“Like Harry Potter?”

She groaned. “No, not really. It’s sort of a middle point between Wicca and Harry Potter.”

“You’re bloody insane.”

Marigold’s eyes narrowed. “See?! This is why I didn’t want to say anything.”

“There’s no such thing as magic and witches,” he said. He sounded so sure of himself, a man convinced of his world and what he could see, but completely dismissive of what he couldn’t understand. “Witchcraft as a term, historically, is applied to anything having to do with things ignorant people don’t understand. That means it’s science. Or there _is_ a perfectly reasonable explanation, they just haven’t discovered it yet, scientifically.”

She grabbed him, encircling her fingers around his wrist. “And this is natural? These shocks?”

“Static electricity,” he dismissed. “Maybe your body is just charged differently than mine. Science.”

Marigold threw his hand aside. “And the accident we just came from? That’s science? You yourself said it doesn’t make sense!”

“Well—”

“And the tea I gave you this morning,” she added. Why was she so compelled to argue with him? She knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. He had to understand. Something deep in her heart said he needed to understand.

“What about it?”

“You really think all that went into the tea was a few really potent herbs?” she asked. “The way it alleviated everything? That was magic; I said an incantation as it brewed.”

He was silent at this, thinking back to the morning. “Why not just herbs? That’s the reason you won’t give me the recipe for it, because your ‘mystical’ secret wouldn’t be a secret.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Hiddleston,” she said. “I know what I did. And I’m not giving the recipe to you because under an unpracticed hand, you could kill yourself by overdose, even without magic!”

“And that’s how charlatans work,” he replied. “ ‘Just do what I say, ignore the man behind the curtain.’”

“Screw you! I’m done. Get out of the damn car.”

He gritted his teeth and flung open the door. “Fine.”

“Fine!”

The door slammed shut behind him.

Marigold sat staring straight ahead, breathing heavily through clenched teeth.  When she finally blinked and turned again, his car was gone. With a shaking hand, she reached for the gear shift. But she couldn’t move it. Not yet. Her nerves were a wreck. Just like that car back in Cambridge.

He was the first lay person she’d ever told, outright. Asha had figured it out on her own when they were very young, and her parents had probably explained it enough. Her father knew because of her mother, but made sure Marigold never said anything about it to the rest of his family. And Tom’s father—he knew from Violet.  Tom was the first.

And she was pretty damn sure he was going to be the last.

Especially, if they all had the same reaction.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are all amazing! Thank you for sticking with me through the long waits for this! Things are coming easier now, so I expect to update more frequently!

Despite being an actor, Tom always appreciated that he’d learned how to be intellectually shrewd while growing up, rather than overly fanciful. He liked his analytical side—it was the only thing that allowed him to stay firmly planted on the ground rather than letting his head float high in the sky of his own dreams. It allowed him to infiltrate the minds of characters and give them a firm foundation in real life. It gave him his talent.

His current problems, however, defied all analytical thinking. And it bothered him. Confused him. Made him question the very fabric of his being. Yet, he kept coming back to the universal logical truths his father had hewed into him throughout his life and education. That meant Marigold was insane—or perhaps a skillful fraud—and he was washing his hands of her. Now. Whether she helped him or not last night, he was done. He didn’t need that kind of crazy in his life. His life had enough of it, thanks very much.

Even so, as he pulled to a stop in front of his house in London, he couldn’t forced the loopy thoughts in his head to settle. Sure, it was nice to tie up all the strange coincidences in the supernatural belief that she could, possibly, have some sort of power beyond a normal human being. So had those people throughout history when something natural and scientific was taking place—the Black Plague, demonic possession, just to name a few. The plague was not a disease sent by God to punish people, it was from filthy living conditions. Possession was psychosis, not a demon. Most of all, witches were usually women who didn’t adhere to the basic principles of their backwards time. They understood herbs and medicine; they healed where prayer and the Almighty God failed. They lived alone and had cats as familiars. They were Cat Ladies before that was even a thing. Basically, it was everything he remembered about Violet.

There was no such thing as magic, just misunderstanding of the natural and scientific.

If there was any voice of reason in all of this, it would be his father. He’d set him straight, and perhaps had more information on Marigold’s background. Maybe there was a reason why Violet always came with a cake but never brought her great-niece after the initial meeting between them. Maybe Marigold was certifiable, after all.

He jumped out of the car and stretched, intent on making it inside without getting too wet from the unending storm. London—England—was legendary for the rain, but he couldn’t remember a time when it had rained this much in so short a time. At least it seemed to fit the current situation well.

Tom stepped up onto the front stoop under the overhang on the door and reached for the knob, but froze when a skitter of electricity sizzled up his spine. He frowned. Oh, great. Now he was having errant electrical charges just going about by himself? Lovely.

The wind swept up around him, ruffling his jacket and bringing with it a wonderful mix of damp earth and spring flowers. Despite the cold rain, the flowers were still there, chief among them the sweetly heady scent of lilac. And lavender. He shuddered with memory of her strange words and singing, glancing quickly in the direction of the plants Marigold had tended the previous morning.

He didn’t know what he expected to find. Maybe a shriveled plant, its final death knell overwatering and cold rain. Maybe a few more flowers on it, if it survived this storm system. But he looked nonetheless, and he heard the sharp intake of air before he realized he had been one to make the sound. His heart pounded against breastbone in shock—in awe, in sudden, crushing anxiety. How was it even possible? The thing was dead, had been dying for a few years since he’d bought the house.

In the place of the decrepit vegetation was a bush, at least four feet tall, fully green with leaves, with several purple flowers open to the ravages of the storm, and several more buds struggling to burst open. It wasn’t near the tree of lilacs his mom had in her garden in Oxford, but it was certainly more than it had been. Healthier. Vibrant. And the scent—god, he’d never smelled something so powerful.

“What are you doing?”

The question startled him, made him jump, his heart beating wildly. Tom turned to the man now standing in the doorway, looking at him like he was the crazy one. Ha! Maybe he was. He hadn’t heard the door open.

“Da!” Tom said, “You scared me.”

His father rolled his eyes. “What’s got you so worked up?”

“T-the bush!” Tom thrust his hand out to the side, in the direction of the lilacs.

Jim stuck his head out to look. “Oh, yes, quite beautiful. Reminds me of that tree back at your mum’s.”

Tom mumbled. “The thing was practically dead a day ago. Now look at it!”

His father merely grinned—the grin Tom had always called his Cheshire Cat grin. The one that said he knew something—a secret—but got some perverse amusement by watching his children go mad when they couldn’t figure the secret out themselves. Then he said the last thing Tom expected. “Did Marigold see it yesterday?”

Tom’s mouth went dry; he ran a hand absently through his hair. He tried to speak, but unintelligible sounds came out and he pursed his lips for a second. Then asked, “What do you know about her? Is she really as insane as she seems?”

“Insane?” he laughed incredulously. “How did you ever come to think that, Son?”

“Let’s go inside. I’m cold and tired,” Tom replied, ushering him aside and pushing into the house.

Jim didn’t say anything until they were both sitting down in front of the fireplace warming themselves. He simply sat still, quietly assessing his son; Tom hated when he was like this. This was his learned academic persona, the person who tried to figure people out and understand their illnesses. That’s what made him a great doctor. In fact, Tom admired him for it professionally. But personally? Sometimes Tom wanted to scream at him for how methodically steady he was.

“Will you please say something?” Tom finally asked, inching closer to the fire and rubbing his hands together.

Jim sighed. “I don’t know where to start.”

Tom was taken, first, by the fact that his father, of all people, couldn’t fill the space with a story. He loved telling stories. About the past. About people he met. Anything that could be a story, turned into one. Secondly, Tom noted the change in the tone of his voice. He was grave, almost introspective.

“We got into yet another argument today,” Tom said, anxious to move the conversation. “We were standing on a street corner, and suddenly Ree is pulling me away toward the building we’d just come out of. A split second later, a car crashed in the lamppost next to where we’d been standing. I asked her how she knew it was going to happen. She said she’s a witch and she sees the future. I mean, it’s ludicrous, but she’s convinced—”

Tom paused in the middle of his tirade, noting the way his father stared at him. As though _he_ , Tom, was in the wrong. Of all the reactions his father could have had, it wasn’t the one he was expecting. After all, this was the man who had no whimsy. Everything was life or death serious.

“She _is_ a witch, Tom,” he said.

Tom jumped from his seat and began pacing, unable to stop himself. He clasped his hands behind his back, wringing them occasionally as he turned and started in the opposite direction. “Has the whole world gone sideways?”

Jim cleared his throat. “So was her aunt, Violet. And Violet’s twin sister, Rose, who was Marigold’s grandmother. And Marigold’s mother, Camelia, is one, as well, but I’m not totally sure because I only met her the once—the time you and Marigold met. But I imagine if it’s hereditary, then Camelia is a witch.”

“You understand how fucking daft this sounds, right?”

“You know I do.”

Tom stopped and stared. If this had been any other person in the world, he might have started yelling like he had with Marigold. But he couldn’t do it to his father. His father, of all people, was not prone to believing in the supernatural. In fact, he loathed superstition, above all else. And that was saying a lot for a man who grew up in Scotland—where it was practically treasonous not to believe in the mystical stories of the Highlands. Fortunately, he wasn’t Irish—then it _would_ be treason, without question.

The fire crackled and snapped in the fireplace for ages until Jim finally sat forward in his seat. “You need to sit down.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sit, now,” Jim commanded.

Tom did so, because even in his thirties, he still didn’t disobey that warning in his father’s tone. “Fine, I’m sitting.”

His father removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t tell your mother I told you this. She doesn’t—”

“Did you have an affair with Violet?”

“What?” Jim scoffed. “Goodness, no!”

Tom nodded. “Rose, then? Or Marigold’s mum? I mean, it would make sense because you were never around. Wait—is Marigold my sister?”

“Thomas! Will you shut your gaping maw for one bloody minute?”

“Sorry.”

Jim shook his head and waved his hand. “Why would that have anything to do with them being witches, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Tom replied. “I don’t know where I’m at right now.”

“You’re here,” Jim said. “You’re right here, sitting with me, and that’s what you need to understand. The reason you are here is because of those women.”

“Who?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “I know you aren’t this dim, Thomas.”

Tom let the vague information percolate in his mind for a minute. “Do you mean _here_ here. Like, they saved my life? Using their supposed ‘witchcraft’? And that’s why you believe that there are real witches?”

“Yes.”

“Da!” Tom barked a laugh. “This is mad!”

“Will you at least listen to the whole story before you open your mouth again? _Then_ you can form your own opinions, alright?”

Tom sighed and sat back in his seat. Fine. That’s all he’d wanted to begin with, not this piecemeal information that made no sense.

* * *

 

Marigold spent the rest of her day huddled in the attic, covered in decades of dust, surrounded by well-worn books. But these weren’t just any books—they were Violet’s diaries and grimoires.

The world could say a lot of things about Violet McMahon, but lazy was not one of them. She was meticulous to a fault and recorded everything from sun up to sun down, and then even what happened during night time rituals. Without fail.  After eighty vibrant years, it meant there were almost one hundred and ten leather-bound journals full of information.

All Marigold needed was a curse. A curse to set on Tom Hiddleston, to be more specific. Why was it so difficult to find one? She didn’t want one to really hurt him, but rather preferred something that would stick around for a bit, an unpleasant irritation. Like his shoes untying whenever he went running. Or maybe a glitch that made his cell phone die at the worst possible moment in all his conversations. Something slightly inconvenient to the normal person, but would drive him absolutely bonkers.

Violet’s materials turned out to be light on curses, and she had no method of cataloging her writings for specific guidance. Only dates on the covers. Spells were intermixed with daily goings-on, ideas on current or future research sandwiched in the margins. It was a nightmare for a quick read—it’d take years to extract all the information into a truly workable grimoire.

Marigold gave up after the sun set and cast the room in purple shadows, the initial Hiddleston-inspired ire she’d felt now dissipated into an extreme prejudice—one that was a little easier to push away and forget. Today, and only today, would he be spared her wrath. Besides, she needed to get back to Cambridge to pick up Asha from work, and who knew what the weather was doing to the roads.

She stacked the books up in even piles of ten along the back of the attic, in an old bookshelf she intended to keep where it was for time being. After life settled down a little and she got into the flow of work life, she’d get back to reading through them. But until then, they had to stay put.

Marigold stood up after placing the last book on the bottom shelf and stretched her back, the vertebrae in her back popping in protest. She rubbed her dusty hands on her trousers, sighing heavily as she made her way for the door.

However, something stopped her. At first, it was a squeeze in her gut, then a physical manifestation.

A square of white poking out from a space between two ancient floorboards caught her eye as she reached for the overhead light. She bent down for it, turning it over only to find an old photograph. At first, she didn’t know who the people were, but that was because she didn’t really take the time to look it over. When she glanced again, though, she made out Aunt Violet and her grandmother, Rose, sitting with a small boy with wild golden curls, probably no older than two or three.

Marigold had never met her grandmother in corporeal form—well, she had, but she didn’t remember her. Her mother brought her to England shortly after Marigold turned one, but that was too early to remember anything. Rose died less than a year later, from a sickness no one in the family discussed. Even to this day, Marigold’s mother refused to talk about it. Every time Marigold asked Violet, she changed the subject and moved on. Marigold had thought it weird at the time, but her whole family was weird, so she didn’t press it. Rose remained nothing more than fiction, a witch of great power and greater kindness, who burned too bright and died too early.

It was strange to see her hale and hearty in the photo, especially considering the boy between them lay on a hospital bed attached to every machine imaginable.

Marigold turned the photo over again and noticed small loopy handwriting on the upper right-hand corner. Her blood froze.

_Thomas Hiddleston, 5 January 1984, pneumonia/sepsis._

“What. The. Fuck,” she muttered to herself. She’d seen a few photos like this over the years, especially while Violet was trying to teach her how to work healing magic. Violet and, Marigold guessed, Rose, kept record of all their patients—well, records of the patients who sought “alternative” forms of medicine. These weren’t always centered around herbal or naturopathic treatment—they were exactly the type of treatments Tom would never believe in. They involved magical energy and difficult spell work. Most of all, they involved binding the illness to something else to remove it from the sick person.

Violet and Rose used themselves as binding objects because that’s what human diseases attached to—humans; it’s what she explained to Tom a few days ago, on the car ride up to the cottage. The witch then could replenish her own wasted energy through other avenues, since the disease was contained. Violet simply reached a point of old age where she’d given too much of herself to others and had faltered. But Rose… Rose had died on Beltane in 1984, a mere four months after the date on a photo where she looked completely healthy.

Icy tendrils curled up her spine, pulling a shiver from deep in her body. Rose couldn’t possibly have—

Marigold dove back for the journals, hurriedly searching for the book that would contain the dates and information she needed. She found the one in question and cracked it open, flipping through the brittle pages so quickly she managed to tear a few, eventually finding the entry corresponding with the picture. Marigold drew in a deep breath and forced herself to read the scratchy handwriting. 

Marigold’s stomach knotted. What happened over the summer? Why weren’t there any entries about _that_? Or maybe there were and she’d overlooked them? She groaned and focused on the scratchy handwriting again.

Marigold pushed the journal way, her hands shaky with new knowledge and a potent rising anger from deep within her.  Though Violet and her mother hardly ever talked about it, Marigold knew the dates of Rose’s illness. And this… well, did Rose ultimately die because she saved Tom? It made everything about his behavior even more detestable. Sure, he obviously didn’t know or didn’t remember what happened back then, but it stung knowing her grandmother gave so much for him to become so horrible.

She swallowed around the tangle of nerves in her throat and forced herself to pull the journal back to continue reading.

  
 

Marigold slammed the book closed. Spell? What spell? What the hell had Violet done? And why the hell did she belong to Thomas—or was _supposed_ to have belonged to him? Because she sure as hell didn’t currently belong to him and had no intention of ever letting such a thing happen.

The urge to puke tickled the back of her throat and turned her stomach sour.  She had to get out of here.

She tossed the book aside carelessly and hurriedly vacated the attic, her chest squeezing so tight she could barely breathe.  She ran right past the movers who had come with Jess to drop off a load of furniture and out into the chilly rain. Her legs refused to carry her any further and she crumbled into a heap in the wet grass in the front garden. The sounds of anxious men and a worried Jess filled her ears in that strange muffled underwater way; they were clearly audible, but the blood rushing in her head prohibited her from understanding.

She took in huge gulps of cold air, relaxing at the faint burning in her lungs. Hands touched her shoulder, a warm body lowered beside her. Marigold glanced to her side to find Jess. Her lips were moving, saying something, but the words were still muddled.

Slowly, achingly slowly, the volume increased as her head cleared from the overload. Marigold drew in a deep, steadying breath, quickly trying to think of a way to explain what had happened without sounding like a fruit loop.

Jess rubbed her back, “Ree, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Do I need to call an ambulance or—”

Marigold shook her head. “N-no. I just… I was reading one of my aunt’s journals and I don’t think… I didn’t realize I’d bottled by my grief…”

“Ah,” Jess said, nodding her head sagely. “A panic attack?”

“Maybe,” Marigold replied. Maybe the magical equivalent of one. Marigold didn’t know which type was worse. “Can you lock up for me? I need to pick up Asha.”

Jess frowned. “Of course. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Marigold stood up and did her best to brush off the blades of grass sticking to her. It was useless, especially with the mud that had seeped into the fabric. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I need to go.”

She left Jess standing in the middle of the front garden and hightailed it to the car. What she needed was time to think, and driving to Cambridge to pick up Asha was going to be her only time to do it. One thing had become obvious, though, with the last entry she’d read. Violet’s spell seemed to have created the animosity between Tom and her; he had no trouble helping the effect of it with his arrogance, but would he actually be bearable without magic impeding their relationship?

Marigold wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

* * *

 

Tom stared back at his father, watching the reflection of the fire dance in his serious eyes, wondering if maybe there might be some truth to what he was saying—or if he should take him for a psychological evaluation.

“Da, the medicine the doctors gave me saved my life.”

Jim shook his head. “No, they didn’t. You don’t even remember having pneumonia, so how can you say something is fact when you just don’t know? I was there. I know what I asked them to do. I know what they did.”

“You don’t know if Violet didn’t have a special herbal compound or something, right? She worked with you, but there’s no way you could have known all the research projects she was running.”

Jim sat forward and rested his arms on his thighs. He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I didn’t believe it either, Thomas. I still don’t know if I believe it totally. What I know is an hour beforehand you were on death’s door. Rose and Violet came in, sat with you, and an hour later you were asking for food. The medicines your doctors were giving you would not have acted like that.”

“Da…”

“Whether you believe it was magic or not, the only thing that matters is they saved you. Whatever they did, whatever they gave you, is the reason you are sitting here with me and having this conversation,” he said. “So what if they called it magic? Can’t you believe in that?”

Tom shook his head. “Then we’re just back at the beginning if it wasn’t really magic.”

“Look, son, we’ll keep talking in circles. All I can say is what happened, as I know it,” his father said. “And I think you’re treating Marigold unfairly. Magic or not, she still saved your life. Twice! Last night and this afternoon. Magic or no, sounds like someone I wouldn’t want to piss off.”

“She’s the reason I was in all those situations to begin with,” Tom deadpanned. “The reason I was in Hatley was because you told me I should drive her home.”

Jim laughed. “And _you_ chose to stay up there and drink afterward. Marigold wasn’t pouring the whiskey down your throat.”

Tom shrugged and slumped back onto the couch. “You have a point.”

“See?”

“In my defense, I’m fairly certain that pub is curs—.” Tom stopped himself, a frisson and an electric jolt forcing gooseflesh to rise on his arms. Funny that he would automatically go to “curse” without thinking about it. Before, it’d simply been a turn of phrase. Now, it had so much more meaning. That is, of course, if he believed in such things.

Except he didn’t.

Right?

Now that the thought was in his head, though, it seemed to make sense to him. Somehow. The last time he’d stayed in Hatley, something compelled to him to drink until he was blindingly drunk. A young university student he might have been, but he’d never really been one to purposely drink to excess. He had that night. He did yesterday.

And then…

And then there was the episode in the wood, after that first time drinking in Hatley. He became ill and passed out near the craggy old cottage he could just see from their hiking path. The nettle patch he’d fallen in was worse. Was it nothing more than his body’s memory sabotaging him, or was there something else there? Could there really be something akin to magic and curses at play?

Even if there were, he just couldn’t completely wrap his head around it. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t see it or taste it or hear it. How was he supposed to believe in anything that he couldn’t verify? This was why he never took to the Christian teachings of his upbringing. He had a fundamental lack of faith.

This realization bothered him, but he quickly pushed it aside. He didn’t have time to think about it right now.

Tom rubbed his face and stood from the seat. He needed dry, clean clothes and a hot meal. Maybe then things might start to make sense.

“Where are you going?” his father asked.

“To change,” Tom replied. “Then we’re going to get food.”

“You should call and apologize to Marigold.”

Tom snorted. “Not going to happen, Da. So don’t keep on it.”

Jim jumped up from the seat and shook his head. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t.”

Tom waved him off dismissively as he turned down the hall and let himself into his bedroom. He shut the door with a snap and rested his head against the cool painted surface. No, _no_ he wouldn’t be sorry, because he didn’t intend to cross paths with her again. He’d had enough excitement after little more than a week knowing her. Honestly, he wasn't sure he could handle anything else.

Not right now, at least.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter than normal, but I don’t think you’ll complain. Thank you all so, so much for your support! Enjoy!

Marigold fell back into a nest of overstuffed pillows three days later, exhausted and ready for everyone to leave her newly decorated home so she could sleep for the next year. At least. But she knew that wasn’t likely to happen, as Jess continued flitting around the place snapping photos for her portfolio and nitpicking last minute decorating choices.

Truthfully, Marigold was a little mystified at how quickly it had all come together after Olly offered to get her in touch with his uncle and with Jess; Uncle Kieran had whipped her contractors into shape, and Jess had enough connections that she’d ordered everything for the house within forty-eight hours.  And all Marigold had to do was deal with a whiny, egotistical brat named Tom Hiddleston.

Honestly, she would have rather spent the time decorating than dealing with that mess. She did, however, find it easier to relax after a blissful three days passed and she had seen neither hide nor hair of him. Considering their record of coincidental meetings and purposeful phone-taking, that meant a lot to her. Maybe the time of their paths needing to cross had come to an end. Maybe she’d—no, _they’d_ —fulfilled Fate’s plan to bring them together again. Maybe she needed the test to move on to the next level of enlightenment; maybe he needed someone to show him what a prat he was.

Whatever the reason, she was just glad. Glad it was done. Life could return to normal. She could go to work like a normal human being. She could make friends with new people. And she could finally put down her roots and grow.

Still, it itched right down into the dark, secret part of her soul to know that her future had somehow been intertwined with Tom since infancy, and no one thought to warn her about it.

After looking through Aunt Violet’s journals the first time, Marigold found it more difficult to stay away from them and had started at the beginning, carefully poring over the brittle yellow pages—all the way back from the forties, when she’d started her grimoires as a teenager—looking for more information on how to be a witch. Well, how to _survive_ as one when most everyone acted like Sir Bloaty Head about things they did not understand.

Marigold wished she’d been more studious when Violet had tried to teach her the ways back when she was a child; hell, she wished she’d given her own mother more time instead of writing her off as one of those head-in-the-clouds spiritualists. Even though her mom _was_ a head-in-the-cloud spiritualist. Still, she had reason to be.

She wondered if she’d spent more time learning, maybe she’d have been able to pinpoint the issue with Tom more easily. Maybe if she knew everything about personal connection and Fate and all that stuff, she’d have her answers instead of a twisted stomach and terrible headaches. Oh, and, just recently, a few nightmares.

Yeah, those would have been nice to go without.

She shuddered, burying deeper into the pillowy couch, wanting to disappear. To sleep for years. Instead, she closed her eyes and listened to the ambient noise. Jess’ footsteps lightly padded overhead. The television and internet technician worked in the kitchen fiddling with the phone line connection. He cursed under his breath at something; the electronics in the house hitched a moment, as if they were about to go out, and came back on. Clearly, he’d hit the wrong wire. Or, perhaps, the latent energy living in the walls had zapped him. Knowing what she did now about Violet, Marigold wouldn’t have been surprised if the old bat had cursed the house, too, so no one could change it. Or, at the very least, had a difficult time changing it.

Which, in hindsight, explained a lot.

Someone plopped onto the couch beside her without warning, jolting Marigold out of her thoughts. She blinked at Jess, who now sat beside her heaving a long, contented sigh.

Jess grinned. “I think my work here is done.”

“Thank god,” Marigold replied. “Not that I haven’t liked having you here, Jess, but I’ll be glad to sleep in a bed I can call my own tonight.”

“Oh, no, I totally get it,” Jess replied.

Marigold laughed. “I really can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

Jess shrugged and jumped up again, setting her camera down on the table in front of them. “Wait here. I have a surprise. Well, two surprises, actually.”

“I’m not fond of surprises,” Marigold replied.

“Trust me, you’ll like them,” she yelled as she disappeared in the direction of the dining room and kitchen. Clinking glass followed, and then she reappeared carrying a dark green bottle of champagne and two flutes. A new label with the words “Welcome Home” printed on it covered the vintner’s gold foil labeling.  

Marigold perked up. “Yes, I like _that_ very much.”

Jess set them down on the table. “You shouldn’t doubt me.”

“You said you had _two_ surprises,” she said. “It all depends on what the second one is.”

“So, the story on the next one is that I was in Cambridge picking up the damask valances,” she said, “and I saw the new age shop you mentioned in passing.  I poked my head in to see if there was something they would recommend for a housewarming for a witch.”

Every hair on Marigold’s body bristled uncomfortably. She hadn’t explicitly told Jess anything, even though there were enough opportunities while she worked in the cottage to find out that the past residents of the place had practiced some form of magic. Jess had never asked for clarification, either.

Jess stepped over to one of her bags and withdrew a cloth-covered package, square in shape with quite a bit of weight to it. She set this down on the table as well. “They asked me what you practice and whether it was Wicca or something else and I had no clue. But I said you do a lot of gardening and use the plants, and that you told me you needed to replenish all your herbs because you couldn’t bring it through customs. So they recommended this.”

Marigold unfolded the wrapping, revealing a simple wood box with a brass latch and a forest meadow scene carved onto the top, the depressions filled in with black lacquer to give the image depth. It looked old—not in the way that someone had purposely made it look shabby, but rather that it had withstood time. Age and touch had weathered the etchings, worn away some of the black and lightened the wood stain around the latch, but it was a gorgeous box. An expensive box. Antique.

“This is gorgeous,” Marigold replied. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t even open it!” Jess laughed, reaching for the latch. She lifted the lid, hinges creaking, to reveal a large assortment of herbs and oils, all packed and labeled. Envelopes of planting seeds neatly lined the top of the container. “They said this should be enough to start with.”

Marigold picked up a few bottles and bags to examine them. She grinned. “This should definitely get me started. But you didn’t have to do all this… I didn’t—”

Jess sat on the couch again and turned to her, setting a comforting hand on top of hers until Marigold met her eyes. “During the last week, you’ve hedged every time I brought up your past and the things I saw in the attic. I just want you to know that I don’t care and I think it’s beautiful.”

Of course, Jess didn’t really know to what extent discoveries had been made in the attic, but a few books had fallen open and landed on pages with runes and other drawings when they were moving other furniture around. Normal books didn’t have those markings.

Marigold didn’t know what to say to her. It was nice to have someone else to chat with—someone who was so open to other ways of thinking even though she might not believe it herself. Someone who clearly supported her, despite her kookiness. A friend. Asha had always accepted her because that was just what happened when two people grew up side by side. Jess was the first layperson who didn’t tell her magic was sinful or that she was an insane fraud—as Tom had the other day.

Marigold felt the dampness on her cheeks before she realized tears had formed in her eyes. It was almost instantaneous. The relief in her shoulders, the feeling of acceptance. After the week she’d had, this moment with Jess made it better. Didn’t get rid of everything, but it made her feel lighter.

She threw her arms around Jess’ neck and hugged her close. “Thank you. You don’t know what this means… to have someone _know_ and not treat me like an idiot.”

Jess pursed her lips as she moved away. “Who treated you like an idiot? Who do I have to kill?”

Marigold shook her head. She didn’t want to ruin anything between Tom and Jess, especially as it might involve Olly. It wasn’t right.

But Jess didn’t need any more information.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Jess said. “Like, I’m going tie him up and filet little bits of flesh off a bit at a time. The arsehole!”

“It’s fine, Jess,” Marigold replied. “He’s entitled to his opinions.”

“Not when he treats people like that!”

Marigold giggled nervously and reached for the bottle of champagne. “How’s about we have some of this and forget it?”

Jess begrudgingly reached for the champagne flutes. “You don’t have to ask me twice. But only a glass; I still have to drive back to London tonight.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but I have an extra bed now,” Marigold replied.

“Touché, my friend,” she said, devolving into fits of laughter.

* * *

 

On the second day after Tom’s explosive fight with Marigold, Jim refused to speak with him until apologies were made. On the third day, Jim returned to Scotland with nothing more than a handwritten note left on the kitchen table saying he was disappointed in Tom, and that he expected better of his son. Tom was more than a little upset—and said more than a few choice words to the empty rooms in his house.

At least he’d gotten what he wanted all along: peace and quiet.

What he didn’t expect to find, mixed in and surrounding the peace, was wretched soul-deep emptiness. He’d finally succeeded in his plans to be left alone, to regroup, and the only thing left to him happened to be a gaping, aching void, like he’d taken a scoop and dug out every little bit of who he was and forgot to replace it with something nourishing. He _thought_ time alone would be enough to replenish his depleted energy. Rebuild him. Well, that’s what he hoped when he returned from the last publicity tour. After a crazy year, full of professional and personal struggles—that’s what he wanted. To be alone. To be himself. Somehow, he got it in his mind that was the only way to soul search. That being himself meant he had to be alone.

God, he was so fucking wrong.

He didn’t realize he needed something _else_ to take the place of everything he purged; he thought starting with a clean slate was the answer. Instead, he soaked up every negative thing around him like a sponge. Now, no one wanted to talk to him, even when he wanted to talk. His father was peeved. Luke was too busy. His friends were all occupied with their families and children because they opened themselves up to human interaction. Even his personal assistant—the guy on his payroll, who _should_ have appeared when he called—was too busy helping other people to care about him for one minute. But then, he asked himself, why would he only want people he paid around him? He wanted genuine, non-manufactured, friendship.

For the first time in a long time, Tom understood how isolated he had become. It wasn’t being on the road, putting on a happy face for interviews or playing with fans that made him this way. It extended to his most private moments, as well.

He was alone. He was _lonely_. He lost touch with his life, lost touch with himself. He wanted to blame poor decisions made while dealing with his fame, but he knew that wasn’t the whole truth. There was something else, something deep down within him; the tiny bit of reservation he held in his mind had bloomed as sure as the lilacs in his front garden had. He did this all to himself because he was afraid. Scared of being burned again, for the millionth time. Somewhere along the way, he’d simply stopped jumping in head-first.

He pretty much stopped jumping altogether.

Only now was he beginning to understand how rebuilding oneself was not a personal, singular task. He craved personal, genuine connection with someone. Anyone. And despite all the shit they argued about, he had to admit to finding something both personal and genuine with the one person he never expected.

_Marigold._

He still couldn’t believe her, not about what she or his father told him the other day. But there was no mistaking the fact, at least not now, that she wasn’t trying to take something from him—physical or mental. Others would have rolled over and accepted the way he acted just to stay in his good graces, to stay in the warm light of his friendship.

Marigold did not. She fought back. She challenged him. She called him on his shit. Of course, he didn’t particularly like that, but who liked a mirror held up to themselves? Maybe they couldn’t stand to be around each other, but at least with her, he felt alive. He felt whole, somehow. Vital. It wasn’t healthy, the fighting and arguing. Still, it was what his soul craved; it craved the attachment. The stimulation. The intricate dance, the push and pull of their sparring. His soul required fire and passion to regrow, no matter the form it took.

He’d been such a twat to her about the witch stuff. Who was he to say those things? It was a terrifying situation—nearly being killed by a speeding car does that to a man—and he flew off the handle in the heat of the moment. He let his fear get the better of him. And the tenuous truce they’d built earlier that day had eluded him. Shattered into pieces. He couldn’t leave it like that. How could he? Especially now that his father refused to speak to him, too?

That’s why he thought it was a clever idea to pack a bag and jump in his car for a drive back up to Hatley. Why exactly it was a clever idea, he didn’t know. What did he think? She was just going to welcome him into her cottage with open arms? That he was going to stay there when she literally looked as though she wanted to slap him all the time? Maybe he’d stay in Hatley, at the inn. Then he’d keep dropping by to wear her down.

He was nothing if not persistent.

The fresh cut lilacs were a little much, though, and made his car stink of sweetness for the hour ride. He wanted them to be a peace offering. Maybe he didn’t believe her, but there might be a chance he could fool her enough along the way that she would at least talk to him for a few minutes. Give him the opportunity to apologize for what he said.

Honestly, the best he could hope for now was that she didn’t slam the door in his face.

* * *

 

Marigold saw Jess and the cable guy off about an hour later and sat down on her couch, enjoying the silence. The house was done. Finally. There were still loads of things to move in—her shipping containers of personal artifacts, as well as the gardening and redoing the barn, but it was a livable space for now. She could relax and enjoy her inheritance; she could find some semblance of normalcy and routine. Hopefully, it would make her feel better after the uncomfortable events involving Tom.

She pulled the box of herbs onto her lap to peruse them more closely. The people who owned the shop clearly knew what they were doing—this wasn’t a prepackaged novelty item. Each of the herbs had been hand selected, dried, bagged, and labeled with dates and special notes about what conditions and phase of the moon they were picked under, among other things. It was enough information to come to the conclusion that the new age shop wasn’t just a few pagan hippies who liked natural living. Whoever owned the place had a serious magical background. Perhaps not exactly like her own background, but Violet always said it takes one to know one. The person who put the package together was a witch.

Marigold still needed to look around the shop herself and purchase a few other items, but she felt comfortable enough to make the trip, knowing that they would recognize her, too. Her family had never belonged to a coven—well, unless, she counted the blood family members who shared abilities as one—but Violet often had other magical friends over for feasts and solstices. Marigold wondered if it wasn’t one of them. Maybe they could give her some answers.

With a yawn, she set everything back on the coffee table and reached for the empty bottle of champagne and the glasses to take them to the kitchen. As she passed by the front windows, she paused, shining headlights briefly illuminating her body. They swept past as the car turned onto her property and stopped.  She frowned, because she did not expect anyone this late. Asha was supposed to be doing something with her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Maybe Jess had forgotten something?

Marigold left the stuff in her hands in the kitchen and came back to the door just as the interloper knocked. She wasn’t a very tall person—in fact, Violet had often called her a sprite or faery—so the peephole in the door was useless. Fortunately, she’d thought ahead and had them install the wide windows just beside it so she could look out.

She gulped. _Hiddleston_. Her face fell and the hair on the back of her neck prickled with a mix of fury and nerves. Seriously? What the hell did he want, anyway?

He caught a glimpse of her as she pulled away and pressed her back against the door. She didn’t want to deal with him. Not now. Not tonight. She wanted the first night in her new home to be calm and happy. Not fraught with arguing and an overblown ego.

Tom inched over until he stood in the window, peering into the dim foyer through the glass. He seemed to take up the whole area, filling up the space with his height and casting a long shadow inside the house. “I know you’re in there, Ree.”

“Go away!” she called.

He huffed. “I drove all the way up here and you won’t even talk to me?”

She rolled her eyes. Could he be any more aggravating? “I know you put my number in your phone. You could have called me. Saved you some gas, and I’m sure whatever horrible intentions you have.”

“My intentions are pure,” he replied. “I swear. I wanted to apologize.”

“This is the _second_ time you planned to apologize, and you still haven’t done it,” she remarked. “I don’t think you’re capable of that kind of humility.”

His laugh was a bit strangled. “Could you please let me in? It’s starting to rain again.”

“No!”

“Marigold…”

“I said _no_.”

“Listen,” he said, drawing in a long breath.  He blew it back out. “I’m sorry. Truly.”

“For what?”

“For… everything. I think.”

Her shoulders fell. He _thinks_? What was that supposed to mean? Everything he’d done and said to her had been horrible. Not just about the witch stuff, but the way he’d treated her since they’d met. And she was just supposed to take that paltry excuse for an apology and move on?

Not bloody likely.

“Marigold?” he questioned, helplessness in his voice. “Ree?”

“Go away,” she whispered.

He seemed to hear it anyway. “It was wrong of me to call you a charlatan. I may not believe in it, but that gives me no right to say what I did. My emotions were running high after the car crash.”

Marigold heard the earnestness, wanted to believe him, but he wasn’t an award-winning actor for nothing. “How do I know I’ll be safe letting you in? I’m not making that mistake again.”

“I’m not the big bad wolf,” he replied. “I _can_ control myself. I promise.”

She groaned and pressed her forehead to the cool wooden door. Her hand hovered on the knob, debating it all over again. Opening the doors would be a mistake. Considering all the other times they’d shared the same space, there was no reason to think anything would change. They went together like oil and water. Even when things were going along decently, something always wedged between them, thanks to the spell Violet had used on him.

“Don’t for one minute think I won’t throw you out,” she said. “And I’ll call your dad.”

The sound he made shocked her. Derision. “If you can get him to talk to me again, then be my guest.”

She pulled the door back. “What are you talking about?”

A sad smile curved his lips. “After our argument, I went home and talked to him. He told me what he thinks your aunt and grandmother did for me when I was a child. I said I refused to apologize to you for my point of view.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re really only here because you want to be able to show Jim you made the effort?” she said. “You’re not really sorry.”

His left arm shot out and held the door steady, as if knowing she was about to shut it in his face. The movement, however, revealed what he’d been holding in that hand: a bunch of lilac stems with huge healthy blooms on them. A strangled sound of aggravation rose in her throat.

“You’re telling me that you’re standing on my front stoop, holding physical evidence of my abilities, and you’re still unwilling to believe me?” Marigold pointed at the flowers. “I didn’t think one person could be so willfully obstinate.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t say—”

“You got a lot of nerve to show up here like this.” Marigold shook her head vehemently and stepped away from the door, sweeping her hand inside to get him in out of the rain. She didn’t like him very much, but that was no reason for him to catch his death on her watch. Especially since she’d personally lost so much because of him, whether he’d known it or not. “You know what your problem is, Hiddleston?”

He shook the rain off his coat and stamped his boots on the welcome mat before stepping inside. “What’s my problem?”

“You have a fundamental lack of trust,” she replied. “I don’t know what the hell happened to you in life, but you trust nothing that you don’t do yourself. And you know what? That’s pretty damn sad.”

“That’s not true.”

“It _is_ true.”

He was silent. Contemplative.  Then he sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Listen, things haven’t been that great for me recently.”

“I’m sure your piss poor attitude hasn’t helped.”

“No, it probably hasn’t,” he said and thrust the flowers out in front of her. “Will you please take these? The smell is making me sick.”

She sniffed. “It’s because lilac is meant to ward off evil and negativity. They’re doing their job.”

“Or maybe I just don’t like strong perfumes,” he offered with a shrug.

“You know that’s why the bush is in the front of your house, don’t you?” she said. “Purple lilac? It’s recommended that lilac goes in the front yard, to protect the house and its inhabitants from evil doers.”

“Or a landscape designer who really liked lilac planted it there.”

Marigold laughed. “Maybe so…”

He pushed further into the house and closed the door behind him. She led him back to the kitchen to look for something to put the flower stems in; she didn’t know where anything was, but eventually found a tall glass to hold them.

“You know, the Victorians also had symbolism for those things,” he said. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, the symbolism for the Victorians was ‘old love’,” she replied. “But the purple—the real lilac color, not the other varieties, means ‘first love’. So, Tom, which meaning would you rather I focused on?”

He stiffened uncomfortably. She contained her cackle. Of course, he didn’t want the second meaning, even though Marigold was beginning to suspect that was why their connection had been cursed as children.

“I think you know too much about flowers,” he said gruffly. “Are all your family members named after them? Rose, Violet, Camelia, Marigold…”

She _did_ cackle at that. Way to pivot the subject. “Yes, it’s tradition. All the women—all the witches—in my family have floral names. Like my great-grandmother was Hyacinth. And she had two sisters, Poppy and Primrose. It goes back to the Normans when they came over, though names changed with the variation of language and linguistic changes.”

“What’s Marigold mean, then?” he asked.

“It means pain and grief,” she replied.

He clapped his hands in delight. “I could have told you that.”

She glared at him and grabbed a pair of scissors to trim up the flower stems. “ _Not_ like that. It’s pain and grief—an offering for the deceased. That’s why Mexicans use it to honor their ancestors on Día de los Muertos. Calendula marigold, the kind found here in Europe, can mean constancy in love. In the middle ages, it was thought to strip a witch of her will. I got the name as a joke. Both for that reason, and because my last name was Locke.”

“You’re telling me your parents purposely named you Marigold because of Goldilocks?” he asked. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

He frowned. “That’s harsh.”

“My mom was high as a kite at the time,” Marigold said. “As she explains it, high on marigold and peyote in a sweat lodge in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert. So I’m glad I didn’t end up with the name Peyote. Then I’d be small and prickly.”

His laughter was nice. Genuine, even. “Then I probably shouldn’t say you are also small and prickly.”

“Um, no,” she replied, snapping the scissors at him. “You should be careful, I might turn you into a toad.”

“If I don’t believe it—”

Marigold shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”  
  


She turned the faucet on and leaned over the sink. She quickly pruned the stems and filled the glass with water, setting it on the new butcher block countertop. They were beautiful flowers; how could he continue to refute the existence of her magic when the very bush that gave him these buds was all but dead a few days ago? She looked at him again and put her hands on her hips. “You may not believe it, but it believes in you. No amount of willful ignorance can save you when it comes for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise.”

She stared at him, willing him to poke harder. He stared back, but he was unreadable. He barely moved. The only sound to break through the tension was that of her stomach growling.

“Are you staying for dinner?” she asked.

She’d only been to the market that morning to pick up the very essentials—bread, milk, eggs. She certainly hadn’t planned on having to fill a man-sized stomach. But she could make something work. She was, after all, a witch.

“Depends. Are you going to poison me?”

She shrugged as she opened the fridge. “Haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, then, I’m just going to sit right here,” he said, pointing to one of the chairs at the kitchen table, “and watch you.”

“You’re not going to watch me. You’re going to be a pest.”

“Will not.”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “Bet me.”

“Fine.” He crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. “Name your terms.”

“If you so much as make one more disparaging comment about being a witch, then I get to throw you out of the house, no questions asked,” she said.

“But what if I say something that wasn’t meant to be disparaging, but sounds like it?” he asked.

“Then you can try to explain yourself and you can make it up to me some other way.”

“I’ll cook you dinner tomorrow.”

Marigold froze and whipped around to face him. “Tomorrow? Nobody said anything about _tomorrow_. You’re leaving here after dinner— _if_ you make it through dinner.”

“I packed a bag,” he said. “Because it’s such a long drive.”

“What the hell do you think this is, Hiddleston?” she asked. “Some sort of bed and breakfast?”

“Well, no. I’ll stay at the inn by the pub if I have to, but I came up here to make things right, so I’m going to make things right.”

Marigold scoffed. “Not by annoying me, you’re not.”

“I thought I would pay my penance by helping you get settled around here,” he added.

“Don’t you have a job? A life? Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of movie star?”

Tom laughed and held out his hands in surrender, setting them on his thighs, palm up. “I have an extended break. I thought I was going to spend it at home, but I realized I was—”

She watched him shrivel into himself, desperately trying to pull back the flood of words that had escaped him.  It was too late. “No, go on. I want to hear this.”

He glowered at her. Silence.

“I haven’t got all day, Tom.”

Tom groaned, glancing down at the floor like a sheepish little boy. “I was lonely without someone there.”

“Lonely?”

“Yes.”

“And whose fault is that?”  
  


“Mine.”

Marigold shook her head. The absolute gall of the man! For him to think he could use her as a buffer because he didn’t want to feel empty or lonely was mindboggling. “You’re damn right it’s your fault. You pushed everyone away and now you expect _me_ , of all people, to just accept you as a guest in my house?”  
  


“I’ll just stay at the inn tonight and go home, then,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“No,” said some sick, twisted part of her. It didn’t give her a chance think. She really didn’t want him to stay. She didn’t need the stress. But having him around so she could work on trying to dismantle whatever Violet had done would be a plus. At least she might be able to end their connection on a sweet note rather than a sour one. “Since you’re already here, you should stay. But you’re going to cook me dinner tomorrow night, anyway. As your payment for staying in my comfy new guest bedroom.”

“Okay.”

“ _And_ you’re going to help me move my moving boxes in, plus help me get the garden ready for planting,” she said. “Oh, and I want the Bolognese I read about. _With_ pasta. What kind of troglodyte eats Bolognese without pasta, by the way?”

His eyes closed and his head fell back, mouth open in mock boredom. “God save me.”

“You’re going to need more than God to help you after I’m through with you, Hiddleston,” she warned. “You have a lot to atone for.”

“I do. But at least there’s the possibility of making it out of Purgatory.”

Marigold reached into the refrigerator to pull out the eggs. She turned around and smiled at him, hoping it looked arch enough. “Purgatory? This isn’t purgatory.”

“Then what is it?”

Her grin widened. “Welcome to Hell, buddy.”

  
And she meant it. He was going to work his soft, uncalloused hands to the bone helping around the cottage. Hopefully, it would give her enough time alone to focus on undoing Violet’s magic and freeing them _both_ from the hell into which Violet had inadvertently placed them.

_Hopefully._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are amazing. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this story.

Six AM came early after a night of restless sleep.

Tom had tossed and turned, dreamed and fell in and out of sleep multiple times, never finding that perfect moment of complete relaxation. It had nothing to do with the mattress—it was better than his—and everything to do with the fact that he was spending the night in Marigold’s home. As much as he didn’t believe in the supernatural, he couldn’t help but feel strange here, as though there were rippling, living, breathing power built into the cottage’s walls and enveloping him wherever he went. It seemed benign to him, yet he had unpleasant dreams as he balanced on the razor edge of sleep and wakefulness. Not nightmares, exactly, just unpleasant moments of anxiety that never fully coalesced in full images. They were emotions. They clenched the muscles in his chest and made his heart beat fast. But it was enough to pull him fully out of twilight sleep to start the process all over again.

Maybe he just couldn’t get comfortable because it was a new place. Maybe it was simply because he’d cooked up this harebrained idea to invade Marigold’s home and now he was stuck with his decision. He refused to renege on his deal. She already thought the worst of him, so why make it easy for her to solidify those notions into cold, hard fact? Some might call him pigheaded; he called himself principled. He never, ever went back on a promise.

And, if he were completely honest with himself, it was nice to know he would go downstairs and find someone there. Even if he couldn’t get this weird feeling of wanting to crawl out of skin out of his system, at least he had something—someone—to take his mind off it.

As much as it galled him to admit, talking with Marigold last night while she’d made dinner of scrambled eggs and toast, and even while they sat together and ate, had almost been pleasant. No, it _had_ been pleasant, almost perfect, after he got done with the initial groveling. The topic of conversation had stayed light, though, never veering off into territories neither of them wanted to argue over. She talked about her plans for the morning—moving boxes in—then grocery shopping in the afternoon. He offered to make a shopping list so they didn’t forget anything, and as the added excuse of focusing on a piece of paper and not her vibrant, soul reaching gaze.

It had worked, their tentative peace. And it seemed to continue to work into the new morning as she assigned him the task of bringing in boxes from the barn while she unloaded her personal effects inside the house. She worked quietly and purposefully filling her downstairs library with books, then they continued upstairs to get her office in order. He’d always considered himself physically fit, and he’d had no problem lugging in the lead weights of the boxed books downstairs. But by the fifth trip upstairs with another heavy load, he found it hard to catch his breath.

Marigold looked up from placing a stack of magazines onto a bottom shelf in one of her office bookcases and smiled at him. “Sit down before you stroke out.”

He wiped the back of his right hand across his sweaty forehead. “You were going to do all of this by yourself?” he said in rush, collapsing into the second office chair in the room.

“Yeah,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been able to go at it with as much consistent effort as you are, but it would get done eventually.”

“You have a lot of books.”

Marigold laughed and grabbed another handful of books from a box. They looked like textbooks. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“Are you one of those once-you-read-them-you-can’t-part-with-them people?”

She shrugged. “This isn’t even that bad, honestly. I had way more back home.”

“In New York?”

“Yeah,” she replied and looked up at the already filled shelves above her. “So you _were_ listening at dinner with your dad.”

Tom sighed and ran a hand through his damp hair. “I always listen to you. I can’t help it.”

Marigold glanced at him, her eyes squinted. “Maybe you hear, but you don’t really _listen_ all the time.”

“I won’t argue with that,” he replied. “It’s a problem that I’m trying to fix.”

She shrugged and went back to filling another shelf, focusing on her work and not on him. He closed his eyes and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling, enjoying the feel of the cool breeze coming in through the open windows. It was a pleasant spring day, the rain now gone, with big fluffy clouds in a sunny sky.

His back and shoulder muscles were already stiffening sitting still, but he couldn’t make himself stand up and return to work. He was too tired. Not sleeping was making it worse. So, he decided to needle her some more. “Can’t you just wave a wand or wiggle your nose and have it all done?”

Marigold huffed. “That’s not how it works.”

“Then what’s the point of calling yourself a witch?”

She turned a glare on him, but her face immediately softened. He expected her to yell, but she didn’t. Instead, she sighed. “I ask myself that every day.”

“Then what _can_ you do?” he asked. “I mean, if I were to believe any of it?”

He might not believe her, but he was interested—interested in the same way he loved listening to his professors speak about the Greek gods in his classics lectures. They were a mythology; they were stories about morals. They were supernatural stories used to explain something the Ancients did not yet scientifically understand in their time. His curiosity told him to listen to Marigold in the same way, even though it was ludicrous to believe two old batty women had basically sucked death out of him when he was a little boy. Or that, as Marigold had tried to explain, she could see the future. It was still much easier to believe his body had responded to the medication pumping through him, and that Marigold caught the sight of a dangerous vehicle out of the corner of her eye and moved away because she felt uncomfortable.

After a period of staring at him, with a look that told him she was trying to decide if he was in earnest or not, her lips finally parted. Then closed again. Then she swallowed. “Would you agree that everything has an energy?”

He pressed his lips into a firm line and shrugged. “I guess.”

“We’re living, plants are living, we all have a spark. An energy.”

“Okay…”

She continued. “It’s in the earth, and the sun and moon. In wind and fire and water. Magnetic charges and lay lines and all that.”

She was insane.

“I can see I’m losing you,” she said.

He grunted.

“Hookay,” she finally said, combing her fingers through her hair and biting her bottom lip, looking for a different avenue to take. Then she glanced back at him. “Energy is constant—and when I say energy, you might think of it in a physical sense like Newtonian physics. In fact, they’re really wrapped up together. Energy is constant and never grows or diminishes, it has everything to do with how energy—or a force—acts on an object.”

“I should warn you that I wasn’t very good with science and math,” he replied.

Marigold chuckled and turned around fully. She crossed her legs and looked up at him again. “You’re not making this any easier, Tom.”

“I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you a visual, tactile, or auditory learner?”

“Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I learn better experiencing and touching,” he replied.

She looked at his hands thoughtfully, spread out as they were on his jean-clad thighs. Something heated and curious filled her face, but she blinked it away. “Figures.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He shifted in his seat and sat up, trying to hide the inconvenient discomfort he now felt in his groin.

Marigold raised her eyes to his—finally. Her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips. It might as well have licked the tip of his cock, for how vividly he felt it. He drew in a deep breath and thought of everything horrible and grotesque he could conjure in his head. But still, the air in the room had changed. It felt heavier. Headier. Is this what she meant by energy?

She sighed. “It’s just that you use your hands a lot when you talk. That’s all.”

“You have to explain it,” he said.

“Well, it’s like you’re feeling your words when you talk with them. You learn it by feeling it.”

Huh. He’d never thought of it that way, but it made sense. He was a tactile person. He had to immerse himself in situations to understand them. Simply listening or seeing wasn’t always enough for him.

Marigold scooted closer to him, awkward with her crossed legs. She easily moved into a kneeling position at his feet; he realized quite quickly how much he liked her kneeling in front of him. “Are you brave enough to let me show you what it’s all about?”

“Show me all about what?” he asked, making sure he clarified the situation. The dangerous look in her blue gaze made him anxious.

“Magic, silly,” she replied. “Energy. What else did you think I meant?”

“This has nothing to do with, er, sex,” he said. “Right?”

She threw her head back and laughed at his expense. “I’ve told you more than once that it’s never gonna happen.”

Yes, she’d said that same thing to him many times. He’d believed her before. But now… now he wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t very convincing, even though her laugh was full.

“I mean, yes, sex can be used,” she replied. “Just consider the amount of energy involved in two bodies moving together to achieve a singular blissful end. I’m told it’s amazing, but I’ve never tried spells and sex at the same time. Though the very act conjures magic of its own.”

Good god, she was Evil. With a capital E.

“But that’s not what I mean, anyway,” she said. Setting her hands on his knees, she used him as leverage to stand up. Maybe she’d done it purely for help, but he refused to believe the extra teasing squeeze—the one that jolted straight to his cock—was anything but sexual. Maybe he deserved it. Was this the Hell she’d warned him about last night? He was almost ready to admit to being outclassed, considering how she made him squirm with so little provocation.

She set her hands on her hips and looked down at him, making sure to take her time, first another glance at his crotch, then his eyes. Now he _knew_ she was purposely trying to upset him. It was his fault. He’d brought the subject up himself and bared his Achilles heel.

“Are you brave enough to let me show you something?” she asked, repeating her earlier question. He found it devilishly hard to understand her, now focused on her lips as they moved to form the words.

Tom struggled to think, taking a good minute to rein in his control and consider her question. Was he brave? If he truly didn’t believe her, then there was nothing to lose. Nothing was going to happen to him. But then there was that small, niggling voice in his head that said he shouldn’t totally discount her beliefs. She seemed so sure of herself; this wasn’t someone who was trying to swindle him. This was someone who believed what she was saying—whether it was a fiction of her imagination or reality. He did, after all, owe her his time and ear, as a part of his penance.

He swallowed hard and met her gaze. “Show me.”

Marigold grinned and clapped her hands. “Okay, great. Meet me downstairs in a few.”

She was gone in a swirl, practically racing from the room and down the stairs, faster than her legs could carry her. Clearly, she’d felt it, too.

Tom sat for a little longer, gathering his wits. Considering what he’d just experienced, there were a lot he had to gather, as well as willing the unwelcome erection pressing painfully against his jeans to subside. These thoughts about her were not welcome. Never had been. So why couldn’t he banish them? He groaned and stood up slowly, muscles protesting his movement with stiff pain. It was enough to draw his attention away from the other pain, but just barely.

He sucked in a deep breath and shook his head. Yeah. He just wasn’t going to think about it. He was delirious after too little sleep. That’s all.

* * *

 

What. The. Fuck.

Marigold bent over the kitchen countertop, resting her inflamed body on the cold surface. She pressed her cheek down and squeezed her eyes shut. What the fuck just happened? One minute they’re talking about books and then it went to magic and then… and then she couldn’t help but focus on his crotch?

Damn.

To be fair, no mortal heterosexual woman, be she witch or normal, would have ever been able to look at such a beautiful male specimen, covered in a light sheen of sweat with a thin t-shirt sticking to his sculpted body, and not feel something about it. Frankly, she thought some lesbians might also be able to fully appreciate the gorgeous musculature showcased in sticky, stretchy cotton. It just wasn’t right that one man could be so attractive physically…

But such an arrogant sod otherwise.

Even then, though, she couldn’t say with any honesty that she still disliked him. She’d never hated him, or found herself immune to his beauty. Rather, he’d been annoying to her, like a mosquito bite on her shoulder in a spot she couldn’t reach. It itched constantly with no relief. That’s what it felt like to be around him. His arrogance hadn’t helped, but after last night having dinner alone with him, a tentative peace had replaced the itch. She wouldn’t say it was gone, more dormant, sitting in pressure cooker waiting to explode. Or, maybe, they had turned a corner.

It certainly felt like it, after what had just happened. She couldn’t escape the room fast enough after kneeling at his feet looking up at him. While there was trepidation in his eyes, there was also desire. Hot, searing need. She felt it, and he felt it. The energy, as she’d tried explaining, had somehow changed.

How was she ever going to face him now?

Marigold groaned and pushed herself up, deciding it probably wasn’t best for him to clamber downstairs to find her bent over the counter in such a suggestive pose. Didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, right?

She went to the living room to find the box of herbs Jess had given her and brought them back into the kitchen, then went to the cupboard where she’d stashed all of her basic magic casting implements until she had time to set up a proper space. She pulled down a stone mortar and pestle, the bottled moon water, and carefully set out six packets of herbs, clean cheesecloth and some lavender oil. Then she grabbed a small paring knife from the kitchen knife block. She was about to rock Tom Hiddleston’s world.

Whether he would actually accept it as reality, was another story altogether.

“Are you coming?” she yelled, when he still hadn’t appeared.

The guest toilet flushed, then the sink water ran.

“What?” he called back when he opened the bathroom door.

“I said, ‘Are you coming?’” she yelled again, heat creeping to her cheeks. When he didn’t respond, she figured she should just keep her mouth shut.

He finally made his way downstairs and seemed to glide effortlessly into the kitchen, a look of consternation on his furrowed brow. Otherwise, he looked perfectly poised. Cool as a cucumber.

“Are we cooking?” he asked.

“No,” she said, grabbing the knife again.

“You’re not going to stab me, are you?”

“No.” Marigold laughed. “Though now that you mention it…”

He held his hands up in defense. “Please don’t. Things were going so swimmingly.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “But I do need to draw blood from you.”

“Oh.”

“Using the knife.”

He took a step back. “Oh… kay.”

“Just like a slice across your arm,” she said. “No more than a papercut.”

“Why do _I_ have to give the blood sacrifice?”

“It’s not a sacrifice,” she said. “I need you to injure yourself so I can heal it.”

His face dropped. “And if you can’t?”

“But I can.”

He wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t immediately say no. Neither did he belittle her magic. “Explain to me what you’re going to do?”

She nodded and set the knife back down, reaching for the first packet of herbs. “I’m going to make an herbal rub, first. This is comfrey.” She opened the ziplocked bag and took out a pinch of the comfrey. “Comfrey helps pull the skin together, and so does yarrow. Yarrow is great for stanching bleeding.”

“So, you’re going to heal me with medicine, not with magic?” he raised an eyebrow, challenge filling his gaze.  

“The herbs are just one part of it. You can use them separately, or to help initiate a spell,” she replied, setting the bag of yarrow down and picking up the Echinacea. “We don’t—well, I don’t—use wands like some prefer. I use herbs to conduct my magic. They call us green witches and sometimes kitchen witches, if we also dabble in edible magic. All crafters are attuned to the earth and the energy around us, but green witchcraft specifically focuses on using the energy inherent in the natural world; Nature is divine. It’s my family tradition, but every tradition is different and personal. This is how I learned to temper my magic—through the earth and the forest and herbalism. Obviously, when you learn from a medical doctor, this is the majority of what you learn.”

Marigold looked up at him, relieved to find a relaxed expression on his face. He seemed to be passively curious about the information she fed him. She wondered if maybe he might be connecting other things in their shared history with each other, especially about the lemon cake Violet took his family each Midsummer’s.

“And then,” she said, picking up the next bag, showing him the written name on it. “We’ll add some calendula marigold for good luck.”

“Ha _ha_ ,” he muttered, pursing his lips.

Once she’d added plantain leaves and rosemary, she finished with a few drops of lavender oil and moon water. She grabbed the pestle and pulled the bowl close to her body, holding it with one hand as she slowly and carefully ground the herbs in clockwise semicircles.

“Is this the part where we’re supposed to start chanting?” he asked. “Or do you just do that over a boiling cauldron?”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “What would you like me to say? ‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble’?”

“I have to say it smells better than whatever I imagine Macbeth’s witches were brewing up,” he replied with a crooked smile.

“Pure fiction,” she said. “We do use some ancient spells in old tongues, but usually it’s anything you want to say to make your intentions known. It’s like a prayer in Christianity. It all comes down to intent, so rituals can be as elaborate or simple as we want. And we don’t have to follow a script. That’s where we differ a little from Wicca.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, unimpressed. “So you’re not going to say anything now?”

Marigold shrugged her shoulders and stopped her work, checking the consistency of the paste in her bowl. Perfect. “So you can poke more fun at me? No, I don’t need to say anything with this salve. I channel my magic—my energy—through my body, and my arm and hand, into the pestle and into the herbs. That charges them enough for this demonstration. To say something would be overkill.”

“Hmph.”

“You see, we witches have to be careful about what we do,” she replied. “Since we’re manipulating energy, basically, using our magic depletes the energy within us.”

He frowned. “But you said the magical energy never grows or diminishes.”

Marigold smiled. At least he was intelligent—and listening to her for a change. “You’re right. But that really means that there is a finite amount of energy in the world. It’s never going to die away, but it can be moved and changed. For instance, when a person dies their energy returns to the earth, and the air, and the cycle starts again. What I’m doing, is moving magical energy through my body and sending it to you, to heal a wound.”

“Ah,” he said. “So when you said Violet gave too much of herself—”

She nodded. “It builds up over a long time, and witches can replenish their energy by asking Nature for some back, but that’s what happens. Sometimes, though, it’s just too much at one time.”

He cleared his throat. “Like your grandmother?”

Marigold darted her gaze to his, seeing the discomfort in his eyes. She sighed. “It’s cliché, but there’s always a price for magic. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s just physics. It’s nature.”

“So you’re saying you used your energy in my hangover tea?”

She nodded again.

“I’m, uh,” he said, halting and staring at her. She saw so many emotions pass across his face, but he finally swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“The tea was hardly anything.” She laughed. “I wasn’t even tired after doing it… Now, I need you to choose where you want me to cut you.”

* * *

 

Tom blinked hard. This was insane. He knew it was insane, and yet he was enraptured, lured into a false state of calm as he watched her carefully and methodically mash the plants into a paste in the bottom of the mortar bowl. Is this what she meant by putting him through his paces this weekend? Challenging him to something like this?

“Can I cut myself?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. I know it’s difficult to trust a crazy witch lady.”

“That’s saying that I believe in magic,” he said.

Marigold shook her head. “You will.”

Tom reached for knife handle and rested it in the palm of his hand, testing the weight and balance. It was an expensive piece, that he could tell. And deadly sharp. It wouldn’t take much pressure to flay his skin. He glanced at her again, watching him expectantly, her lips slightly parted.

“Did you cut yourself on the prop knives in the new Thor?” she asked, out of nowhere.

The question made him falter, fumbling the cutlery. In catching it, the blade grazed the palm of his hand, slicing open a good two inches of the skin. He cursed and drew his hand toward him, but she was already there with her fingers circling around his wrist, pressing the cheesecloth to his skin to collect the dripping blood.

“I didn’t mean for you to drop it,” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck!” he muttered. The pain shot up his arm every time the smallest tendon or ligament or muscle moved. “Your magic better work.”

Marigold wiggled her eyebrows. “It will.”

She pulled him across the kitchen toward the sink. The water came out lukewarm against his skin, washing the welling blood down the drain with a swirl. Very carefully, she dipped two fingers into the bowl of paste and brought it to his hand, glancing up at him again as though asking permission. If it made the cut feel better, then he was all for it. He nodded.

“I guess this is probably confirmation you cut yourself on the prop knives?” she asked, smearing a bit of blood and paste along the gash like a toddler doing some grotesque finger-painting.

He sucked in a sharp breath, holding it, telling himself he wasn’t going to cry at the new stinging sensation. “No,” he breathed, “They’re props. Blunted and plastic.”

“Aw, pity,” she replied.

“Hate to break it to you, but the hammer isn’t real, either,” he said.

Marigold laughed. He was starting to like making her laugh, the rare times it happened. “Damn, just ruining movies for me left and right.”

“What made you ask about the knives?”

She shrugged.

“You can’t leave it at that.”

Marigold then pressed her palm to his—her hand so tiny and delicate—and entwined her fingers with his like this was a normal occurrence. It was so far away from a normal occurrence, he tried to pull back, grimacing at the onslaught of electrical shocks passing between them. They weren’t anywhere as intense as they had been just a few days ago, but they were still there and unpleasant.

And it only got worse.

After a few seconds, the salve on his hand became intensely hot, like he’d stuck his hand straight down on a hot burner. He tried to pull away, yet again, but her fingers were like a vice, holding him in place. In fact, he yelled unintelligibly at her when she met and held his gaze, determination knitting her brow.

Then, she let go. The heat in his hand was gone. So was the pain. Everything was back to normal and he stared at her, listening to the trickle of the sink faucet.

“I think I had a reaction to the herbs you used.”

Marigold chuckled and guided his hand back under the water to wash away the bloody salve. “You had a reaction, but it wasn’t allergic.”

As the water carried away the bits of wet herb from his skin, a clear image of the damage started to form.

Except, there was none. There wasn’t even evidence of a cut.

He used his other hand to feel around his skin, checking for injury and residual pain. Nothing. No scarring. No residual chemical burn or irritation.  He blinked rapidly, over and over, trying to force his brain to make sense of what had happened. Make sense of what his eyes had seen, and what he’d felt.

Marigold, meanwhile, calmly washed her hands and utensils with soap and packed up her other materials. He was still standing at the sink staring at his hand when she finished her work and came back to him.  She stepped into his field of vision, close enough that he could almost feel her heat against his skin, and looked up at him.

“We need to get back to moving stuff in,” she said. “Daylight’s wasting.”

His heart pounded painfully against his chest when he locked eyes with her. He felt like he’d just discovered the elusive secret of life; every nerve ending in his body was alive with excitement and awe and wonder. But still, there was the analytical part of him that begged him to calm down, begged him to approach this with a little bit more scientifically-inclined research.

“I’m going back to the office,” she announced.

He stopped her when she reached the dining room. “Wait, Ree. Please. You never answered me about the knives and Loki.”

Marigold sighed. “I was just thinking that you were looking determined like Loki did in the new trailer and went from there.”

Tom waggled his eyebrows. “I’ve heard many women think it’s particularly attractive.”

“And I’ve heard you’ve got an ego the size of Mount Rushmore,” she said, pushing on his chest to move him away. “You’re not off the clock. Go get more boxes.”

He resisted the urge to salute her, but he did watch her walk away and retreat upstairs to her office, a million and one thoughts ricocheting through his head.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 14 was posted Friday evening, May 12th. Make sure you’ve read it before this one. Thank you all so, so much for your support! Enjoy!

Marigold set her napkin down on the table in front of her and looked across at Tom as he sipped his coffee. He was silent as he watched her from over the rim of the cup, a new contemplation in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Marigold could only guess that he was finally warming up to the truth about her abilities, because he’d been quiet—contrite, even—while moving the rest of her boxes into the house.

After finishing with the boxes, but not completely emptying them, she’d gathered him up and trundled him off to Cambridge for lunch. Well, she said it was for lunch. What she really wanted to do was stop in at the new age shop and ask a few questions. The problem was that if Tom followed her across the square, there was a chance he’d make an ass of himself and embarrass her once inside the store. Even though he’d seemed rather placid after her impromptu demonstration of her healing abilities, she didn’t trust him out in the public. He’d turned on her with less provocation.

She grabbed her purse from the seat beside her and held it against her chest. Violet’s journal inside the purse pressed against her, a corner digging into her abdomen through the leather bag. She cleared her throat. “So, there’s a shop I need to run to across the street.”

“Okay,” he said, grabbing the phone and wallet he’d set on top of the table when they’d sat down, in preparation for joining her.

“No, it’s okay.” She held a hand out to stop his movements. “I’ll go by myself. You’d be bored.”

He considered her for a long moment. “Witch stuff?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about it in the open like that,” she said.

“Why?”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “There’s a reason my family survived through the ages of inquisitions and trials, Tom. And it’s not only because we effectively warded our land to keep everyone away.”

“Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

She shrugged.

“But why would you go to a shop to get stuff when it’s so prominently out there?”

“Because normal people just think it’s all that new age-y hippie stuff,” she said. “You know, for people who like ‘natural’ living. Or, you know, for people like you who think we’re looneys.”

He nodded his head and considered again. Finally, he sighed and set a hand on his stomach, scratching through the cotton of his shirt. “Alright, then. I’ll just head to the market and start on our list.”

“Perfect,” she replied. “I shouldn’t be long.”

Marigold popped out of the restaurant before he had a chance to stop her again and made her away across the street to the shop. Tiny bells tinkled as she stepped inside to a dimly lit room, packed to the gills with magical products of every type, some actually used in the craft and others of pure novelty for the sightseers who happened to wander into the store. Strong smoke carrying the bitter scent of sage floated through the air; she paused to close her eyes and breathe in deeply. It smelled like Violet.

A small, shriveled old woman materialized from the back room, hunched over a cane she used for both support and for guiding her way through the maze of standing displays. She stopped in the middle of the store, placing the bottom of her wooden cane down in front of her like an anchor, using with enough force to elicit a _thump_ on the carpeted floor. She folded her wizened hands in an elegant fashion on top of it. Her black outfit, which seemed to be some modified form of a robe, swished into place around her ankles.

“I wondered when you were going to show up, Marigold,” she said.

Marigold swallowed her surprise at being known; it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but she wasn’t used to others like her. “Uh, hi.”

The old lady smiled. “How did you like the box I sent you? Jess is such a lovely girl to think of you.”

“Um, it’s wonderful. I got to use it this morning, actually,” Marigold replied, pushing further into the room and closer to the little woman. She looked as if a good breeze would knock her down, and yet she seemed sturdy as Marigold moved toward her. “Who are you?”

She cackled. She was the crone people wrote myths about with the paper skin wrinkled with time, and milky, unseeing eyes. The only thing she didn’t have were giant hairy warts on the end of a hooked nose—or green skin.

“Cora,” the woman said.

It all slid into place. She remembered Cora, but just barely on the edges of her memories. She was one of the witches Violet regularly invited to feasts and sabbats in the forest they owned. Marigold had always thought Cora was older than dirt, but fifteen years had stooped Cora’s shoulders more profoundly and dug deeper furrows into her skin. She was still beautiful, in a way, with her silvery white hair wound into a bun on top of her head like a wisp of a cloud. The most important part of her memory, though, was about how powerful the old woman was. To have lived so long using magic and not meet the same fate of Marigold’s own grandmother and great aunt, said a lot. Cora was not a woman to anger, but she was also a woman with a lot of experience who could help her.

“I remember you.”

Cora grinned again and nodded slowly. “And I remember you, dear girl. I suspect you came to visit me about the problem you’re having with your beau.”

Marigold choked and coughed into her hand. “He’s not my beau.”

“Perhaps,” she sang, her body in motion again as it crept across an aisle toward an old wingback chair. A teapot and two teacups sat on the small table beside it and another matching chair, in the same threadbare upholstery. “Come have some tea with me.”

Marigold knew better than to refuse the woman, even politely. She already knew Cora would become an important source of wisdom and teaching, with or without dealing with Tom. Best not to start off on the wrong foot. “Sure.”

She settled across from the old lady and watched her meticulously pour out steaming water into the porcelain cups and set two metal steeping balls inside them. Even with the limited—or no—use of her eyesight, she seemed like an old pro.

“Sugar?” Cora asked.

“No, thank you,” Marigold replied, taking one cup from her outstretched hand.

Cora sat back in her seat and held her own cup in front of her face, enjoying the steam bath on her skin. “Did you bring me something?”

“Well,” Marigold chuckled, remembering the book in her purse. “It’s written word, so I don’t think it’s going to do much good.”

“But you can tell me what it says,” she prodded.

Marigold sighed. “My aunt Violet—”

“Powerful healer, that one,” Cora interrupted. “But she bore a lot of darkness.”

“I’ve come to find that out.”

A knowing smile stretched Cora’s thin lips. “You’ve come to see me about the lemon cake.”

Cold shivers crawled up Marigold’s back. She didn’t know why it was surprising. Clearly, the woman had other sensory powers. “Uh, well, yes. And no.”

“You want to know what she means by your belonging to Thomas.”

“You know?”

“We spoke on it many times,” Cora said. “I tried to counsel her to cease her foolish vendetta against that family, but she was headstrong, even knowing it would hurt you. Your aunt didn’t want you to know each other; she wanted to keep you separated so you would never know your true happiness.”

Marigold frowned into her tea. “Hurt _me_?”

Violet had always doted on her when she came to visit—hell, she’d gifted her a sizable inheritance, too. Had she been making up for the problems her spell on Tom might cause? Had she felt guilty?

“Have you not come to my shop because you want to reverse whatever spell she used to cause the rift? Because it has hurt you?”

“Well—”

Cora sighed and set her tea down.  She leaned forward in her seat and hunched over her cane. “You can’t use another spell, dear girl. You have to wait for it to burn away.”

“So there’s no ending in sight?”

“I didn’t say that,” Cora replied. “You can do things that will hasten it. I imagine you’ve already seen the holes.”

“Well, yes,” Marigold said. “Sometimes it’s really good between Tom and me, but other times I want to dash his head with a rock. I’m seeing more and more holes, as you say.”

“Time is the only thing to break it,” she explained. “It’s why Violet had to redo the spell every year, to keep it strong. But once your Thomas moved away from his parents, she couldn’t continue feeding it to him. It started the lengthy process of breaking down.”

Marigold groaned and closed her eyes. “So it’s taken at least eighteen years for us to be able to be in the same room with each other without ill affect. What does that mean for what’s left? Do I have another eighteen years to wait?”

“No, it’s nearly at its end,” she said.

“How can I poke more holes?”

Cora laughed. “You’re an anxious one.”

“I want him to understand. I want him to see me and not think I’m insane.”

“ _That_ , dear girl, will only come from him seeing your powers in action,” she replied. “But once he believes, he will be yours for life.”

“What can I do now?”

Cora leaned back in her seat and held her hands in front of her. “Physical contact. The more you touch him, the more he’ll see through the spell.”

“But it hurts sometimes—the shocks—”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s one of those nasty side effects of warding magic. It’s a last attempt by the spell to do its job. Of course, it must be failing spectacularly if you’re here. When you touch him, the magic breaks down further, because it’s an explicit and willful contravention of the spell. Your magical connection with him is stronger than any spell will ever be.”

“My ‘connection’? What kind of connection do I have with him? Why did Violet say I was his?”

Cora nodded emphatically. “Why, you’re twin flames.”

Marigold sat back and blew out a stream of air up her face. Well, now that was going to be a problem. She’d already considered their connection had something to do with that, seeing as Violet had likened her relationship with Rose to that between her and Tom. Violet and Rose were twin flames in the purest sense, a non-romantic iteration of the idea of soulmates, because they were biologically identical. Twins in spirit and in body. The thing between her and Tom—well, it could remain platonic. But after everything that had happened this morning, Marigold knew exactly what type of twin flames they were destined to be.

“How did they know? How could they tell?”

“Rose had a vision,” Cora said. “And they said it was confirmed when you were introduced to him as children. Violet said your mother set you down and Thomas came straight over to you, sat beside you, and wouldn’t leave your side. He cried when they took you home.”

Marigold sighed. “But he’s been horrible to me.”

“It’s the spell, dear girl,” she said. “You mustn’t hold it against him.”

“Spell or no spell, he didn’t have to say the things he has,” Marigold replied.

Cora held her hands out in a placating motion. “I do not know what he’s said, but you must consider that he may not have otherwise said them if he weren’t being acted upon by a malicious spell.”

Marigold shook her head.

“The person who deserves your anger is Violet, not Thomas,” Cora continued. “She is the one who elected to controvert nature and your destiny. But of course, there’s always the thought that maybe this _was_ your destiny, all along. Maybe if you’d never had something keeping you apart, you and your Thomas would have grown up together, and fallen in love, even married early. You might have a whole passel of children now. Think, though, about what you’ve learned and who you’ve become. Think about the important contributions both of you have made to the world separately. Twin flames who meet early in life can end up stifling each other, but this has allowed you both to grow. Now you’ve reached a point where you need each other for some reason, and your bonded souls are calling to each other.”

“So basically, what you’re saying is that we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” Marigold said. Honestly, she didn’t know who, or what, to be angry at. This spell hadn’t only made Tom disagreeable. It had also fucked with her life. Her string of college boyfriends were unhappy dead ends because there had been someone out there—someone she’d already met—that was her perfect fit. She might not have known it, but it explained why her romantic life had been shit. It was why she’d sworn off romance and sex for ten years. Because it never went well. And until this moment, she’d steeled herself to being unhappily alone for the rest of her life.

It was one of the reasons why she decided to move to England, to the middle of nowhere. So she could be by herself.

Cora reached across the space between them and set her hand on Marigold’s arm. “Keep touching him. It’ll fade away.”

“It’s finding excuses to touch him that’s the problem. He just thinks I’m some crazy person talking about magic,” she said.

“I think that’s changing,” Cora replied. “I can feel it. He’s staying with you at the cottage?”

Marigold pulled her arm out of the old woman’s grasp, wanting to break the connection she’d tapped into, though sensing the woman could see it without touching her. “Yes.”

“You wanted to be intimate with him this morning.”

It was a statement of fact. It brooked no argument.

Marigold’s face bloomed with heat. “N-no!”

“Are you being honest with yourself?”

She groaned, covering her face with her hands. “No.”

“The good news is that this spell is hanging on by a thread,” she said. “The bad news is that it’s still there. And unless you forge ahead, you’ll have to wait for it to dissipate naturally.”

“I don’t have to sleep with him, do I?” Frankly, it wasn’t the _worst_ idea in the world. The problem was convincing him to sleep with her.

Cora cackled again. “Oh, dear me, not if you wouldn’t like to. But a kiss wouldn’t go amiss. It might be just enough to sever the thread.”

“True love’s kiss, huh?”

The old woman sat forward in her chair and grabbed Marigold’s hand again. “Being a twin flame doesn’t mean love at first sight. It simply means that your souls sing together in a harmony no other soul understands. Romantic love—well, you still fall into that the old-fashioned way. Being a twin flame makes it easier, though, because you’re already each other’s compliments.”

Marigold nodded. “Thank you.”

Cora smiled. “Go home. Beltane Eve is tomorrow. Light a fire and honor your ancestors and dance. See what happens.”

“With… him?”

“No,” she said. “You alone. Reconnect with the earth, with your forest, and then things will seem clearer to you. Trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

Her milky eyes blinked and her smile widened. “You are a dear girl, Marigold. Your aura is a bright light like your grandmother’s.”

Marigold gathered her purse to her side again, but stopped when the cell phone in her pocket began to ring, metallic bells ripping through the sedate shop. She pulled the phone out to find that it was Tom on the other end.

She put it to her ear. “You couldn’t wait like ten minutes?”

“I need you,” he huffed.

Marigold swallowed down a suddenly parched throat. “Why?”

“It says flour on this list,” he replied. “But what flour? There’s like ten different flours in the baking aisle.”

“Unless I say a specific kind, always pick up all-purpose,” she said, glancing at Cora again. “I have to go, Tom.”

“Hurry up,” he said. “I need help.”

Marigold laughed long and hard at that. “You have no idea how much help you need.”

With that, she ended the call and slipped the phone back in her pocket. Cora looked chuffed. “Yes, by just a thread. Not even a thread—half of it is cut through already.”

“I’m glad you’re so optimistic,” Marigold replied.

Cora smiled sagely. “When you get to be my age, it’s all you’ve got. Now go, but don’t be a stranger. My granddaughter, Sylvie, is eager to meet you. She actually runs the shop. I’m only here while she’s picking up her babies from nursery.”

Marigold stood up and stretched her legs. “I’ll probably be back after Beltane, depending on how this clarity thing goes.”

“I’ll be waiting for a full report, my dear,” she said, waving her farewell as Marigold wove back through the shop and out the front door.

Marigold sucked in a deep breath of the chilly spring air, enjoying the slight burn in her lungs. Cora had been an invaluable source of information, but that still didn’t bring her any closer to Tom. She still had to do that all on her own.

At least she had a solid path to take, whether or not any of Cora’s suggestions worked.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? Oh yes, it’s another chapter of Home. **There are some issues in this chapter that tread into the murky issue that has plagued the fandom since Summer 2016. The views and how I’ve fictionalized them are not meant to disparage anyone.** Thank you all so, so much for your support! Enjoy!

****The grocery store was a scene of chaos. Okay, maybe not end-of-the-world apocalyptic food-stealing chaos, but the Saturday shoppers were out in force. And someone must have recognized Tom, despite his sunglasses and baseball cap disguise.

Marigold found him immersed in a group of people snapping photos with their phones and begging for autographs. Despite his casual easiness talking to them, she immediately noticed his discomfort. He held his shoulders back and wide, stiff with tension that moved up jaw and pulled the little muscles near his ear. If he pressed his lips into a terser line, then they’d disappear. There were also furtive glances around, looking for a suitable excuse to rid himself of the curious looky-loos. Like a caged tiger, he paced the front of his too small habitat searching for an escape.

She took pity on him, surrounded as he was. She knew he could handle himself, but that wasn’t any excuse to bombard a man just trying to do his grocery shopping. She also felt bad about dragging him all the way to one of the largest squares near the university on a weekend, where she should have realized there were bound to be a ton of people out and about doing their errands. It was this reason that propelled her into helping him.

Sucking in a breath, she waded into the fray, weaving through the crowd until she made it to the front of the line. A woman was just leaving his embrace after a selfie, so Marigold took it as her opportunity to swoop in and wrap an arm around his, entwining her fingers with his. There were upset tuts from a few people, obviously thinking she had cut in line, but she smiled as sweetly as possible and looked up at a speechless Tom.

“Sorry ladies,” she said, laying her sweetness on thick. “We really need to get our shopping done and head home.”

He blinked rapidly, as though trying to comprehend that she was really there. He lifted their entwined hands and looped his arm around her back so that her arm crossed her front. He didn’t make any attempt to release his grasp and instead pulled her hard against his side—hard enough that she lost her breath for a moment—and slipped their hands further down to her hip. The position locked her firmly in place; it was intimate and too close, her breathing suddenly coming in shallow puffs.  She swallowed and glanced up at him again. Where was he going with this, beyond acting out an extreme possessiveness to ward off the group of people staring back at them?

“All we need to do is stop at the butcher,” he said softly, to her alone. Then why had he been so insistent on her finishing up at Cora’s to come help him? Had he known what this scene was going to turn into? Had he needed an excuse?

“Perfect,” Marigold smiled, turning to the crowd. Some had already filtered away. A few ardent fans backed up a foot or two, but shot her death glares. “I’m so sorry. We’re just on a time crunch.”

Tom finally stepped into the conversation. “Thank you, all of you. But she’s right. I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet everyone individually.”

Titters of acceptance filtered amongst them. Marigold thought it was funny how it was okay for him to turn them down, but a person he was with had no standing in their eyes whatsoever. She already suspected she’d be public enemy number one by the end of the weekend, at least on the internet, since she’d been spotted with an Internet Boyfriend. She’d deal with it though, because he had looked truly upset by the attention—something she had not, up to this point, ever seen from him in press images. Something was wrong. It didn’t take any extra power to intuit that; all she needed to know was how he was crushing her to his side.

“Let’s go,” she finally squeaked, moving again to turn around toward the trolley that he’d pushed behind him.  Tom let go of her and they walked side by side to the butcher where he quickly selected the meat required for their dinner, but he didn’t say anything else to her directly.

He didn’t speak much at all, actually, except for when they argued about paying at the till. He won quickly by employing his long arms and making it to the credit card reader before she did. Then he didn’t speak as they loaded the bags into the back of his Jaguar. Marigold watched as he folded further into his thoughts and waited. Waited for him to talk about, to smile again, something. 

But he didn’t.

She sighed and stretched out in the passenger seat once they were out of Cambridge. It was painful to see him so morose about something she thought he relished. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He coughed. “Not particularly.”

“Too bad.”

“Leave it alone, Ree,” he warned.

“I’ve never seen you like that.”

Tom glanced at her. “You haven’t been around me for very long.”

“You were upset.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Marigold refused to take no for an answer. “Sometimes it helps to talk instead of bottling it up and letting it eat away at you.”

The scowl he turned toward the windshield would have withered a flower.

“I think I deserve to know a little bit about what happened back there if I’m going to have to deal with the fallout of the attention,” she said.

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. Then he loosened them, before tightening them again. The muscle in his jaw ticked. “I love my fans. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just a little… overwrought… with all the attention. Sometimes all I want is to go to the shop and pick up some groceries. Not put on the Tom the Actor song and dance.”

“I totally get that,” she said.

He looked her way. “How could you possibly understand?”

“One of the reasons I decided to leave New York was to get out from under the thumb of my dad’s side of the family,” she said, picking at lint on her jeans. “I always had to put on this goody two-shoes bit whenever I was around them. Any sign of weakness and they smelled the blood in the water.”

Tom pressed his lips together. “Did they, uh, know about…”

“I couldn’t talk about it. They’re super Christian,” she said. “Not like the horrible bigoted Christians you’re thinking of—I mean, one of my cousins is gay and they’re okay with it. But you bring up magic and I’m suddenly in league with Lucifer himself.”

Tom was silent, considering what she’d told him. She knew it was two totally different situations—his life invaded by people he couldn’t do his job without, her with a loving but close-minded family. But there was a familiarity in what he told her that rang true for her.

Marigold shrugged. “I know it’s not _exactly_ the same, but we’re both tired of the same shit. We just want to be ourselves, right?”

He nodded. “Right.”

“Without having to worry about what anyone thinks of us.”

“Yes.”

“Well, congratulations, Tom. We finally have something in common,” she replied.

That drew a lighthearted laugh from him.

Marigold grinned. It was nice to hear him laugh again. “You don’t have to answer me, but does this all stem from what happened over the summer and the fallout?”

His shoulders stiffened. He cleared his throat. “Sometimes I feel like you read my mind.”

“It’s because I do.”

“You said nothing about telepathy.”

Marigold chuckled. “Okay, maybe I don’t read minds. I’m just good at reading people.”

“Yes,” he answered her original question, simply. “And no. It didn’t start this summer, but it _did_ come to a head. It really hit me that I wasn’t _me_ any longer. I was—am—the public’s commodity, traded in paparazzi images and vicious tabloid stories. Everything spun out of control when I realized I couldn’t just have a random fling, especially not with someone who likes to use people like she does. I thought I could, but I learned quickly I couldn’t. Do you know people try to track her private jets? People track my whereabouts using Twitter mentions, and paparazzi try to catch me in the most unflattering times and I … it’s oppressive. You know? And then you start overthinking things like what you’ve said and done in public to make people hate you so much and it all spirals from there.”

“I get it,” she said. “I do. But some of that comes with the territory of what you do.”

Tom agreed. “Playing with and meeting my fans is wonderful, but all that compounded too rapidly and I wasn’t prepared. I have some time off now and I thought that sequestering myself away in my house would help me rebuild what privacy I’d lost—but I, uh, realized it’s not that easy.”

Well, at least that explained away some of the rotten mood when he found her sleeping in his bed. It even made her less judgmental about his reaction to the subsequent time she happened across him at the café in Hampstead—of course, he would think it was an unwelcome intrusion. Like she had purposely engineered excuses to interrupt his self-imposed exile.

“Are you lonely?” she asked.

He seemed startled at her question, but she noticed something sad cross his eyes. He deflected from his own emotion. “Why do you ask that?”

Marigold shrugged. “It just seems like it’s lonely at the top.”

“Even though you have everyone around you and about you? Yeah, it’s bloody lonely,” he admitted. “Are _you_ lonely?”

“Ha. Yes. Think about it. I moved to a different continent, to a cottage in the middle of nowhere with the intent of being one of those witches you read about in storybooks. I was convinced no one got me or would ever get me, but I’m realizing that’s not the case and that locking myself away in my ivory tower was never going to help me.”

Tom was silent for a long time, scratching his beard thoughtfully. Finally, he turned to look at her. “So you were, in essence, building your own prison cell, huh? That’s pretty twisted.”

“Yeah, well, your prison cell is your ego,” she teased.

“Maybe so.” Tom finally sighed and relaxed back into his seat. “Maybe I’ll never get back to what it was like before, like Pandora’s box. It’s all out and wreaked its havoc and there’s no way my world will ever be the same even if I try to stuff it all back in.”

Marigold nodded and reached out to pat his arm in sympathy. “Yes, but there’s also hope in that box, right?”

A weird smile of appreciation stretched his features. “Do you know how nice it is to talk to someone who understands my references?”

“Lots of people get your references, Tom,” she said, though satisfaction rippled through her body. After her meeting with Cora, she knew why it was easier for her, maybe, to understand him. Marigold simply didn’t realize it would materialize in something as simple as this. Or that he’d be able to notice it with the spell still in place. Perhaps Cora was right—the spell was like Swiss cheese and hanging on by the barest of threads.

“Well, yeah, but I’m used to explaining myself all the time,” he said. “It’s nice to not have to qualify comments with tons of information.”

“And here I thought you just liked being a know-it-all,” she teased again.

Tom scoffed. “Okay, when a reporter stares back at you blankly after you give an answer to their question, we’ll see how much _you_ can resist the urge to elucidate.”

Marigold laughed and looked out her side window. After a while, she drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. “Just remember that time heals all wounds.”

More than he knew, apparently.

“Or I need to learn to live with the new normal,” he replied. “Can we talk about something else now? I’m done being broody.”

She shrugged. “What do you want to talk about?

He glanced again in her direction, nodding at her arms where she held her purse. “How about why you’ve been clutching your purse so tightly to you since we left the cottage earlier.”

Marigold did not realize she had been so protective of the journal inside the purse, or that he had noticed her preoccupation.  She released her hold and let it lay on her lap. She hadn’t been ready to tell him about the journal entries, especially with a few of the things Violet mentioned, but maybe he didn’t have to know about the last one with the curse and their connection. The other stuff shouldn’t be too bad.

“It, uh,” she said, reaching inside and pulling out the old journal. “It’s one of Aunt Violet’s journals.”

He turned down the road that led to the cottage. “Is that why you had to go to the magic shop?”

She nodded. “I was looking for guidance, and it turned out that the witch there is someone who was friends with Violet and my grandmother.”

“Guidance about what?”

“You.”

He frowned. “You were talking about me with another witch.”

She still didn’t like the way he said the word _witch_. The tone was still a little incredulous, despite all that he’d witnessed this morning. Frankly, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to substitute a letter and finish the distasteful intention of his tone.

They pulled to a stop in front of the house and Marigold extracted the picture she’d used as a bookmark and handed it over to him. Then she watched him for any sign of emotion. He looked at the picture clinically, coolly detached, then he blinked.

“That’s me,” he said, his voice wavering with barely contained emotion. He ran the pads of his fingers over the glossy photo as though he could feel himself sitting there, or as though there were the barest tinges of memory waking up within his mind.

“Yes,” she said. “With my grandmother and aunt. Violet is on the right, Rose on the left.”

“They were identical.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“You look like them,” he said in wonder. “Their eyes have nothing on yours, though.”

Marigold wanted to ask where the hell that came from, but she was too dumbfounded to say anything. Had he really said it, or was it her imagination? What had possessed him?

He flipped the picture over and read the words. “Am I mentioned in the journal?”

She bit her bottom lip and handed over the open book. He read the first entry about the day Violet and Rose went to the hospital to help him, all the while his face remaining inscrutable.  When he finished the passage, he shut the cover with a snap and handed it back to her, seemingly content with what he read. He stared out the windshield for the longest time, physical and metaphorical clouds passing shadows across his face.

An afternoon thunderstorm had gathered in the distance, gaining speed and darkening the sky. Jagged lightning streaks touched the ground in silent flickers, quiet rolling rumbles reaching them ten seconds later.

“We should probably get inside with the groceries before the storm makes it over here,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

His hand shot out and grabbed her arm, the suddenness of the movement and the shocks passing between them stilling her in her spot. Marigold looked over her shoulder at him, but still he said nothing.

“What?” she finally asked, softly, just above another rumble of thunder.

“My father… when I decided to be an actor… we’d go round and round about me making something of myself.” If his voice were a physical thing, it would have been a knife stabbing her heart. “To be my own man. He _hated_ what I wanted to do. But I was convinced, and to prove him wrong, I’ve tried my best to be the best. To work hard. And to give back, knowing my good fortune.”

Marigold nodded.

“He’s come around, obviously,” Tom said. “But this—the way it’s written in there. Was he so adamant about it because of them? Because he was convinced they saved me, and I had to show something for it? What if this isn’t enough? What if I’m not—”

She set a hand on top of his, squeezing his fingers. “Stop. That’s not what Violet means.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I knew Violet,” she said. Not as well as she thought, but she still knew her better than most. “This self-sabotage is playing into what happened at the grocery store. You _are_ enough, Tom. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He sucked in a deep breath, turning in his seat to fully face her. “You’re too good to me after how I’ve treated you. If all this is true, if there’s really such a thing as magic, your grandmother died because of me. You should hate me, but you’re here holding my hand, convincing me I’m not a waste. I don’t deserve it.”

Marigold snatched her hand away and lightly smacked his shoulder. She chuckled, trying to deflect her emotion and the tears prickling her eyes. “Oh my god, are actors always this melodramatic?”

Tom shifted away from her. “Excuse me?”

“You know what Violet would tell you right now?” she asked. “She’d tell you to pull up your big girl panties and deal with it. The last thing either of them would want is for you to wallow around like this. What Violet means about making something of yourself is that you need to _live_ your life. That you smile and laugh and love. Stop caring so much about what others think about you or making some grand mark on the world. Even a tiny drop in the ocean causes a million ripples.”

“You make it all sound so easy.”

She laughed and pushed open her door. “I know it’s not. Believe me. You can’t change the past, but you can affect the future, so concentrate on that.”

Tom got out of the car, shutting the door behind him. “Then that’s a whole other worry. What does the future have in store for me, anyway?”

“How about we start by getting the groceries inside before the storm arrives,” she said. “And then I’m going to bake cookies for later, and you’re going to make us dinner. How does that sound for the future?”

He pursed his lips, eyes narrowing as he considered her words. “It sounds like heaven.”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “Apparently, I’m not holding up my end of the bargain. I promised you hell this weekend.”

“You know,” he said, reaching into the backseat for the bags of groceries, “I’ve never really considered just how thin the line is between heaven and hell until just now.”

“No kidding.”

They walked to the front door together and she let them in the cottage. Tom turned to her before he left for the kitchen. “But don’t worry. The day is young. I’m sure you’ll think of something to make me suffer.”

That sounded like a challenge and, Marigold thought, she was never one to back down from a challenge. He was going to live to regret those words. Oh yes, he was.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you ALL so much for showing me and this story love! I did not respond to comments from the last chapter, because life has been so busy, but please know that I am so humbled by your kind words! Thank you!

Tom was grateful for a refreshing shower after putting the groceries away for Marigold. It gave him much needed time to calm down from the scene at the market and to process everything that they’d talked about on the ride back to the cottage. Well, process everything that had happened since this morning, really.

He didn’t know what to think, more confused than ever about Marigold, where they stood, and his rapidly changing point of view on what she called “witchcraft”. Was she a witch? Were magic and spells real, tangible things, not solely contained in the pages of fiction? Had two witches really saved him as a child, and if they did, how much did he owe them—owe their descendant? Reading from Violet’s journal made him feel about an inch tall, knowing what they must have put into saving him and thinking about how Marigold must view him knowing he was the reason she never knew her grandmother. Even though _he_ was still out on accepting that magic saved him when he was a child, _Marigold_ was clearly all in. How could she not blame him?

A cut on the hand this morning was one thing. But bringing him back from the brink of death without the aid of medicine? That was still difficult for him to wrap his head around. Why, though? If he was willing to believe what happened before his very eyes this morning, then why was it impossible to accept that a stronger magic had helped him as a child?

Just how much must she hate him after all the terrible things he’d said and done to her? She’d made light of his sudden overflowing of concern for his actions by smacking his shoulder playfully and telling him to concentrate on the future. What was the point, though, if he’d already done too much damage? Pandora still had her hope, but what if there was no coming back from that? What if Marigold, though she said she didn’t, always held it against him?

He couldn’t have that. Not now that he was getting to know her, and actually liked what he found. She was beautiful and lively, intellectually clever yet empathetic. Most of all, she didn’t let him rest or accept the status quo. She challenged him to be better. By god, he wanted to better. For himself. For his family. And, surprisingly, for _her_.

It was a jagged pill to swallow, especially since there was still something off between them. Some sort of weird feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it was enough to put him on edge, make his hackles rise in preparation for a fight. Why? He had no bloody idea. There was no reason to dislike her; she hadn’t ever given him a reason to dislike her. Well, unless one counted her criminally cheery disposition and her ability to know exactly what was going through his head at any given time. Still, there were times he wanted to rant and attack. Which was so _not_ him, he had no idea what was wrong.

At least these times were becoming fewer; instead, he decided to focus on the positive moments. Like the heart-to-heart they’d had on the ride back from Cambridge that somehow calmed his jangled nerves. Or the nice quiet lunch they’d shared enjoying each other’s company. And now, dinner. Well, dinner once he pulled himself together and went downstairs to start the Bolognese sauce.

Tom rubbed his wet hair one last time with his towel and hung it up to dry in the bathroom, then combed his fingers through his curls and pushed his glasses on his face. The achy muscles in his lower back and shoulders screamed with protest, and he cursed recently giving up the weightlifting regimen he’d been on since filming The Night Manager. He was still strong, but he was sure if he’d kept on some of that muscle, he wouldn’t have hurt as much after this morning’s workout.

Maybe Marigold had something for it. She had the power to obliterate hangovers and heal a cut with no evidence—some sore muscles ought to be no problem for her. Right?

With that thought, he quickly dressed in jeans and a Henley before making his way downstairs.

He’d heard her turn on some kind of music as he’d stepped into the shower, but it was too muffled to make out the words or what type exactly from his location in the house and with the water running. Now, he could hear acoustic songs clearly floating throughout the lower level, piped through what must have been hidden speakers. Her renovator did a bang-up job, because he hadn’t noticed any evidence of ambient speakers in the walls.

Tom stopped at the passage from the formal dining room into the kitchen and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest to watch her. The orientation of the kitchen allowed him ample opportunity to do it, too, as she was turned away from the entry.

Marigold hummed quietly along to the music as she flitted around the kitchen like it was second nature to her. A flower-patterned apron protected her clothing, but a smudge of flour on her cheek showed she’d probably tried pushing away a bit of hair that had fallen in her eyes at some point. She focused her attention on measuring out some ingredients, but other ones she eyeballed, grabbing a large wooden spoon to stir the thick batter in her glass bowl. She wasn’t some beginner, that he knew from their first breakfast and the pancakes and bacon she’d made, but this confirmed for him that her talents and familiarity with potions extended well beyond medicinal herbs. What had she called it? Kitchen witchcraft? Whether it was the salve from earlier or the cookie batter now, she seemed to be weaving a spell—a spell that entranced him.

A smile tugged at his lips, coming from a sudden and unexpected warmth in his chest. It squeezed something inside him, stole his breath away, and forced gooseflesh to rise on his skin. Somehow, it seemed right to be standing there, watching and admiring her as she wiggled around the kitchen. He’d never found her more appealing than he did right at that moment, though he’d never had any particular predilection for women assuming traditional, nurturing roles—or a kink that involved watching them do it. But right then, some caveman hindbrain of his sat at full attention. And again, the unwelcome stirring in his groin made him squeeze his eyes shut and will away his traitorous thoughts.

“Oh, hey,” she finally said, breaking his concentration.

He opened his eyes. Marigold stood in the middle of the kitchen, holding a silver teaspoon in her fingers. Her head was cocked to the side, eyes squinting as though she were trying to figure something out, perhaps trying to understand why he was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed and his eyes closed.

Tom straightened and cleared his throat, fidgeting with his clothing. “Hi.”

“You look better,” she said, turning back to her work. “I mean, not that you don’t always look good. Just less frazzled.”

“I feel better,” he replied, then winced as he moved. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything for sore muscles, would you?”

Marigold darted a glance at him, a wicked smile twisting her lips. “Are you asking for conventional treatment or something of the more witchy variety?”

“Uh, anything?”

“Have I made a believer out of you?” she prodded.

Tom sighed. “The jury’s out.”

“Even after everything?”

He shrugged and stepped beside her, resting a hip against the countertop. “How about I say that I believe in _you_?”

“In… _me_?”

“I’m not ready to be conclusive about anything,” he replied. “But I believe in you. Whether it’s because you know the perfect herbal combinations for medicine, or if it’s magic, you have some sort of ability I don’t understand. I believe in _you_ , if not magic.”

She sucked in a breath and stopped stirring.  She turned to him, mirroring his pose with a hip against the countertop. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.”

He hoped it was even _better_ than the best. Wasn’t that what all this was about? Hadn’t she accused him of having a fundamental lack of trust? Well, it was coming back to him. And he realized that he could trust her, whether magic was real or not. She wasn’t trying to hurt him in any form. Shouldn’t it mean more to her that he was willing to trust her, alone?

“But, unfortunately, I don’t have anything I can give you right now,” she said. “I don’t use paracetamol or anything because I usually make my own herbal alternatives—I haven’t had the opportunity to restock.”

He groaned. “It’s okay. It’s not _that_ bad. I was just curious.”

Marigold smiled and dipped the silver teaspoon in the batter. She handed it to him. “Try this.”

“Are there raw eggs?” he asked.

“I’ve been eating cookie dough with raw eggs in it since I was a little girl, and you know how many times I’ve got sick?” she questioned. “None. Live a little. You’ll be fine.”

Tom chuckled and considered the chunks of chocolate in the brown-colored batter. “At least I know where to find you if I do get sick.”

“Should I have you go draw up a final will, just in case?” she asked.

He stuck the spoon in his mouth and closed his eyes. As the self-styled pudding king, he’d had his fair share of sweets throughout his life. Even pilfered the odd batter-covered utensil from his mother’s baking. _Nothing_ had ever tasted this good when it wasn’t even the final product—and they were only chocolate chip biscuits. Maybe it was a left-over effect brought on by the funny warmth from a little bit ago. He couldn’t decide.

“That’s decadent,” he murmured, swallowing and smacking his lips.

She nodded her head resolutely, took the spoon from his fingers and tossed it in the sink. “Good. I like unbiased critics.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t call myself particularly unbiased. Any sweet is a good sweet.”

Marigold flicked her eyes to his briefly, but quickly turned around and focused her attention on doling out even mounds of batter on a baking sheet. “Anyway, yeah, I don’t have anything made, but I can whip something up.”

“You don’t have to,” he said.

She sighed. “But I _want_ to.”

“Well, okay,” he replied.

Marigold grabbed a completed tray and walked across the kitchen to stick it into the top oven. She set the timer and turned around. “You have a choice, though.”

He frowned. That didn’t sound good. “A… choice?”

She nodded and continued doling out mounds of batter onto another tray. “A choice. I can make a tea for you, somewhat like the hangover one I brewed, but there’s a chance it won’t be as effective as the second option.”

“What’s the second option?”

Why did he know he wasn’t going to like this?

“Like I demonstrated earlier,” she said, “by using the oil and pressing my hand to yours, I healed your cut. Right?”

“I guess. Yes.”

Marigold blinked. “I can give you a massage, which will accomplish the same thing with your poor muscles.”

“Will it burn?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she replied.

Who was he kidding? Of course it would burn, but not because of some reaction to the herbs or to her magic. It would burn because the last thing on earth he needed was for her delicate hands to be rubbing all over his body. He wasn’t sure he could handle that and still maintain the level of decency he swore to uphold this weekend. Not because he was going to impugn her work, but because he’d narrowly made it out of the office earlier this morning with his dignity intact. This was a bad idea. No, not bad. _Horrible_.

There were too many reasons why he shouldn’t do this.

And yet, he said, as clear as day, “Okay.”

“After dinner,” she said. “I need to finish here, and you’re liable to fall asleep on me during the massage. You’re not getting out of making me dinner.”

Tom held up his hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”

Darling? _Darling?_ Where the bloody hell had that come from? He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ignore his momentary lapse.

Marigold glanced at him again, curiosity in her gaze as her lips twitched into a small smile. “You’re sure about the massage?”

“I said I was, didn’t I?” Maybe it came out a little more clipped than he’d intended.

“I’m only making sure,” she said.  She finished a third tray, and left that one alone while she waited for the other two ovens to finish cooking the previous two trays. “Let me just get this stuff cleaned up and then you can get in here to get started. Then _I’m_ going to go have a bath. I feel like I’m covered in dust from moving everything in.”

He held a hand out, stopping her with a touch on her arm. He couldn’t control himself or his sudden urge to touch her. “I’ll wash up for you.”

Marigold shook her head. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ve got to wait for the cookies to be done, anyway.”

“I can take care of those,” he said. “Believe it or not, I do know what cooked biscuits should look like.”

“I have no doubt,” she replied, worrying her lower lip with her teeth for a second. “Okay, fine. The last tray goes in for ten minutes. If the cookies in there don’t look golden brown, give it another minute or two, but watch them carefully. These are new ovens, I don’t know how they cook just yet.”

“No problem.”

Marigold laughed and reached behind her to undo the apron tie on her lower back. She lifted off the apron, held it in her hands, then looked up at him.  Standing on her tip toes, her arms were just long enough to drop the neck hole around his head. He let her do it, simply because he was momentarily disarmed by the fact that she smelled of warm sugar and vanilla and the scent shot straight to the pleasure center of his brain. Tom licked his lips, wondering if she might taste as sweet as she smelled.

She stepped back. “Turn.”

He did, presenting his back to her. He felt her tug at the waist and fiddle with the tie on his lower back.  When she was done, she stepped back again and admired her handiwork. A laugh played on her face, lighting her eyes and making a pink warmth rise in her cheeks. Tom held his arms out and spun around for effect.

“So… how do I look?”

“Perfect.” She giggled. “Though I’d pay money to see you in the one Luke gave you.”

Tom lifted a brow at her. “Oh? You like the ridiculously over-tanned, huge jock type guy on it?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I prefer lean guys with glasses who are always ready with a quippy Shakespeare quote.”

Okay, now he knew she was just playing with him. Right? Like earlier? But when he looked at her again, she didn’t seem at all teasing, despite the lightness of her words. There was something else there, something he wasn’t sure he was ready for. They could barely stand each other when he’d come knocking on her door last night—how could it be so different now?

Tom cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind?”

Laughter burst from Marigold. “My point exactly.”

He shrugged. “Go. I’ve got this handled. I mean, you gave me the official chef apron and everything.”

“Do you want me to shut the music off?” she asked.

“If music be the food of love, play on,” he retorted.

Marigold rolled her eyes and laughed again. “I’m sorry I said anything. Geez.”

“I’m only getting warmed up.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she teased. “Alright good luck with the cookies.”

With that, she waved him off and left quickly through the kitchen, through the dining room, until he couldn’t see her any more.  Tom rested back against the countertop again, going over their whole conversation again. None of this made any sense whatsoever to him. How could it be so good, and yet, at times, so maddening to be around her? There was no logical explanation for anything like this. He’d never had this sort of trouble figuring out another person…

Or understanding his own feelings about the other person.

The oven timer dinged and he groaned. He couldn’t really afford to think about it all right now, as there were cookies to bake and dinner to make. And lord knew he’d never live it down if he let his mind wander too far down that road and he spoiled dinner by burning it. Of this, he was certain.  Besides, he wanted to impress her with his culinary skills, anyway…

Even if he didn’t know why.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so, so much! Enjoy!

Marigold sat back from the table and moaned. Her stomach ached from too much pasta, but she hadn’t been able to put her fork down the whole meal. She’d give it to Tom. The Bolognese was pretty darn good, and even better that she hadn’t had to cook it herself. Or clean up, as Tom was currently doing, hunched over the sink with a tea towel over his shoulder like some impossibly sexy chef. All he needed were crisp chef whites, then the image would be complete.

She sighed and stretched her legs out in front of her, considering the red lacquer she’d quickly painted on her toes after her bath.

What a difference a day made. A day ago, she wanted to turn him away at her doorstep. Now she wanted to make sure her toes looked manicured and cute while she gave him a massage—gave him one because she _wanted_ to touch him.

Her tea with Cora was important and may have influenced some of the change in her, but from the way Cora’d explained it, the conversation had little to do with the process. The breaking down of the spell was going to happen anyway—in fact, had already been in the process of breaking. What’s more, their irreversible connection remained simmering below the spell, whether or not she had ever uncovered the source of their problems.

However, knowing the truth _did_ make it easier to accept him constantly showing back up in her life like a bad penny—that whether she wanted to be linked with Tom or not, the need to be with him or some part of his life was intrinsic. Fighting against Nature, Fate, and Time was useless. This connection was innate, woven into every cell of their biology, never to be unbound. Violet’s spell or not, they shared a bond so deep no other person currently in or yet to come into their lives would ever come close to matching it. At least, that’s the way the idea of twin flames had always been taught to her.

It was a _need_ , a compelling one, driving them together. To complete the soul that had become so big—so full of enlightenment—that it split at some point because one puny human could never handle such power. Instead, two shared the load together for lifetimes, searching for each other, dark looking for light, masculine energy for feminine energy, trying to be rejoined as one.

When she really thought about it, it was all very romantic and the stuff of fairytales and happily ever afters. Something illogical and impossible to fully grasp.

She stopped herself from becoming too hopeful, though—from allowing herself to think she and Tom would ever make it to that point. That they could fall in love and completely embrace their joining. Twenty-four hours had changed a lot, and another twenty-four was sure to change much more, especially after she applied Cora’s suggestions tonight. But that meant nothing when it all came down to it.

Tom might understand the pull to her, and indeed, seemed to understand it in some regard already, whether it was purely sexual or friendly for him. She knew he’d been standing behind her and watching her move around the kitchen as she made cookies. What she hadn’t expected was the look of bliss stretching across a serene-looking face. It punched her right in the gut and made her heart speed up, giving her the audacious hope that it might be easier for him to grasp the concepts she so desperately needed him to.  But she was also pretty sure he’d never go so far as to accept what this was between them once he knew. She couldn’t come right out and explain it; he wasn’t exactly a pro at accepting strange new information.

And then the conversation with him when he first brought her back to her cottage kept replaying in her mind, forcing her to remember his attitude toward women. His “arrangements” as he’d called them. Clearly, he was in no need or rush to want something like this—something that would tie him down, even if he was prepared for it. Sure, he could ignore the pull, go on with his life, and they might never speak to each other. Then they’d pass on and their souls would start the cycle all over again. But it would hurt… it would hurt them _both_ deeply to have found each other, only to tear apart and go their separate ways.

Hell, _she_ didn’t even know if she _wanted_ to be tied down like this ten years after accepting her spinsterhood. Who wanted a silly man to complicate matters, anyway? She certainly didn’t need him. She’d proved that to herself, thanks to Violet’s intercession.

She wondered if maybe being twin flames wasn’t also a curse: the existential and consuming need to be together, but a logical human brain with life experience always complicating matters. Was it better to break Violet’s curse—to let it run out—only to face the possibility that all of it wouldn’t matter anyway? That he’d turn right back around and leave because he was an arrogant, ignorant ass? That she wouldn’t be able to integrate him into the life _she_ wanted?

She knew all that was a little ridiculous. They’d worked well together today, like a choreographed dance, set to the tune of domesticity. It was easy. Fun, even. And every time he shot her one of his mercurial gazes, it made her wibble a little harder. Falling in love with him would be effortless. Living with him more so. But when their careers started back up? When he went to the far reaches of the world for months on end and she stayed back working?

Marigold groaned and stood up. What was the point of worrying, anyway? She couldn’t control what happened any more than Violet had; it didn’t matter in the end, because here they were. Together.

She stretched her arms above her head then bent over to touch her toes until her back popped pleasingly all the way down her spine. When she stood back up, she glanced over at him. “I’m going to go get ready.”

“Okay,” he muttered, turning momentarily, a dish in his hand as he dried it and carefully stowed it back in the correct cabinet. At least he was trainable.

Marigold went into the living room where she’d set up the massage table earlier. It was old, at least as old as Marigold, but the tan cushion was still fluffy and the supports were in good repair. Fortunately, it’d been stored in the attic, not in the cellar, so the flood that had originally destroyed the lower levels of the cottage had bypassed it, as if by providence.

She laid out a long towel on the vinyl cushion covers and grabbed the ingredients she needed for the oil she intended to make. She looked up when she heard Tom’s footsteps coming closer.  He stopped just inside the room, looking over her set up, then at her.

“I didn’t realize you had the whole…” He waved his arms at the table.

Marigold nodded. “Violet used it for her nonconventional healings, but also for good old physical therapy on patients. She taught me how to use therapeutic massage.”

“Obviously,” he murmured, looking at the table again. Was that a flash of trepidation in his eyes? It wasn’t like she asked him to lay on a bed or anything. It was a massage table in the middle of the living room. Hardly anything suggestive about it.

“I’ll step out so you can get undressed,” she said, pointing to the pile of blankets and towels. “You _have_ had a massage before, right?”

He scoffed. “Many.”

“Well, then you know the routine. Clothes off, blanket cover on,” she said.

“You need, uh, all of it off?”

He was _shy_? Marigold chuckled. “Again, nothing I haven’t seen before, much less on a twenty-foot tall movie screen.”

A flush of pink tinted his neck. Embarrassment? Marigold sighed. She should probably take pity on him. Of _course_ , this was very different from doing it on a movie set with paid employees and bosses looking on. This was… personal. As much as she was trying to remain clinical about the whole thing, she felt it, too. The charge in the air. The energy. It made her shiver.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just, back massages traditionally go down to—”

“I know very well where back massages end,” he snapped.

Marigold set the new bottle of massage oil down. “You don’t have to go that far. I’ll just change up what I do.”

“No,” he replied and moved his hands to his belt buckle. “The painful part is my lower back.”

She sucked in a breath and turned away. She wanted to look. Every part of her wanted to turn around and watch him undress—she swore just for clinical inspection—but she bit her lip and coughed. “I’ll just… go.”

“Why are you so worried if, as you say, you’ve seen it all before?” he parried at her. “Worried about what you’ll find?”

 _No,_ she thought. _I’m worried about how I’ll feel._

Marigold rolled her eyes in an attempt to brush off her discomfort. “Baby, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

“You think?” he asked. Mischief tugged at his lips and lit his eyes. He pulled the tip of the belt out of the loop and unlatched it from the buckle tongue, sliding it out of the buckle until the two ends of leather hung open around his waist. Then he slowly, achingly, pulled the thing from his body and wound it around his hand. 

Fuck, talk about hot.

She couldn’t believe he wasn’t stopping. What was he trying to prove, anyway? He set his belt on an end table and grabbed the hem of his soft blue Henley to pull it over his head. She’d stared at the open buttons on his neck for half of the night, cursing them, wanting him to close them. Now, it was worse. So much worse. What the fuck was she still standing there for?  She had wanted to move out of the room, to give him his privacy, but she stood rooted to her spot, enraptured by the smattering of dark hair across his chest and lower, extending from his navel into his jeans. She may have seen naked men before, but he certainly was a specimen deserving much closer inspection.

She knew it was the challenge. This was nothing more than a high-stakes game of Chicken. She’d tried making light of the situation, and had inadvertently put her foot in her mouth. And he was intent on showing this to her in expert fashion, attempting to call her bluff, trying to find what one thing would be her hard limit for the night. She figured she deserved it after what happened earlier in her office.

He toed off his shoes, then popped open the button on his jeans and held the zipper fly between his fingers. A large, taunting grin filled his face. Marigold licked her lips, catching herself mid-lick, and turned away with a burning face. Oh god, what had she got herself into? She wasn’t ready for this… this… whatever was going on. _They_ weren’t ready for it.

And yet, Marigold refused to let him win. She couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature to lose, much less to him, simply because he’d discover one of her many weaknesses. Clearing her throat, she turned back to him with her chin raised high, holding his heated stare in defiance. The corner of his mouth twitched and he gave her a slight nod of appreciation for her ballsiness.

Literally.

The sound of the metal zipper lowering filled the now quiet room.  Her heart beat an erratic rhythm against her breast, blood pounding in her ears. She felt like she was suffocating. This was the meaning of waiting on bated breath.

He hooked his thumbs on his jeans and his boxers, not averting his gaze, not blinking. He was giving her a moment, just one, to back out. To make the choice. To save both of them from any undue blushing. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him as they darted back and forth from his face to his hands, desperately—willfully—ignoring the now straining bulge barely contained by denim and cotton.

The small muscles in his hands flexed, pushing the fabric over his hips in a tortuously slow movement, revealing more of the sharp cut of his Adonis belt. Lord, did she _know_ why the called it an Adonis belt after looking at him. It was gorgeous. _He_ was gorgeous.  Her mouth watered at the thought of licking a path over the ridges of muscle and sinking her teeth into his hip; her knickers flooded. Her breath hitched on a whimper.

He heard. She knew because he stopped his movements, the jeans barely clinging to his low hips, and his blue-green eyes filled with more heat. She blushed again and shook her head. She had to stop this; she had to put some distance between them before it got out of control.

Marigold finally uprooted her feet and shifted, moving swiftly by the massage table, trying to make as wide a berth as possible from his force field out to the foyer. To freedom. To the ability to breathe.

Except, that didn’t happen, either. His hot, hard body slammed her into the nearby wall, pinning her in place with strong hips and stronger, punishing fingers burying in her hair. Then there were lips sliding and teeth biting and tongue tasting, gasping for air, her body igniting into a giant supernova of unquenchable need as his hard length pressed against her belly.

And then the moment exploded with an audible _pop_ , like a pin pricking a balloon.

The earth quaked beneath their feet, violently enough that Tom took a step back and pressed his hands to the wall on either side of her head to steady himself. Fortunately, it wasn’t so far that his hips, which were her only source of support keeping her vertical, moved.

“What the fuck was that?” he huffed through labored breaths, looking side to side, squinting at a swinging picture on the wall. “Was that an earthquake?”

Marigold spluttered a response that was gibberish. Cora hadn’t said anything about this. About how she would know they’d worked through Violet’s curse. That it was gone. Caput. But now she knew. The problem was how to explain it to Tom.

“I’m just that good,” she jested, trying to get his mind off it. She didn’t want that conversation. Not now. Not with her nether regions screaming for his undivided attention.

He chuckled, the sound low and raspy in his throat as he leaned in, brushing his lips across hers once, retreating, then diving back with more insistence. She moaned into his mouth and reached behind his neck to pull him closer. Gods, she couldn’t get enough of him. She wanted to consume him. It felt like he wanted the same from her.

His hands slipped down the wall and rested on her hips, pushing lower under her ass until he could lift her up. But he froze mid-movement, teeth biting her lower lip hard enough to break skin. He dropped her a few inches and moaned in pain.

“Your back?” she asked, laving her inner lip with her tongue. The slight taste of copper filled her mouth. It wasn’t bad.

He nodded, pressing his forehead against hers. “Not as young and resilient as I used to be. I’m sorry about your lip.”

Marigold giggled. “I’m fine. You need the massage.”

“I _need_ many things,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Massage first. Let me make you feel better.”

“I know another way you can make me feel better.” He grinned. “Many other ways.”

She shook her head and pressed her hands on his chest, enjoying the feel of his soft skin beneath her fingers. It was the first time she realized the painful shocks were gone. In their place was a low thrumming energy, exhilarating and magnetic. “With what? With you laying motionless on the bed because you can’t move?”

A brow rose in challenge.

“I require an active participant, thank you very much,” she replied.

“Of course,” he murmured, dipping down until he could kiss her again, “you deserve only the best.”

Marigold sighed, luxuriating in this new gentler touch. His right hand brushed hair out of her eyes, then trailed a finger down the edge of her jaw, lighter than a feather. Gooseflesh rose on her skin and puckered her nipples painfully against the lace of her bra.

She grabbed his hand and pulled down, setting it over her right breast. He growled and dove back for another harsh kiss, his thumb teasing the pebbled flesh. It was exquisite.

“You’re not making this easy,” he hissed.

“Didn’t you issue me a challenge earlier about giving you hell?”

“I just didn’t think it would be like this,” he said.

Marigold smiled. “I don’t think either of us planned on this.”

“No.”

“But it doesn’t mean I’m not going to exploit it,” she replied. She pushed back on his chest. “Finish getting undressed and get on the be— _table._ I mean table.”

He laughed with her. “You’re cruel.”

“Definitely.”  Marigold stepped away from him and moved in the direction of the foyer.

“Marigold?” he asked. Her full name said like that made her heart stop.

She glanced back at him. “Hmm?”

“You have witchcraft in your lips.”

The heat started from her toes and flushed up her body.  She groaned. It was both cheesy and wonderful. Most of all, it made her laugh. “How long have you been looking for an excuse to use that line?”

“Longer than you’d probably believe,” he murmured. Turning his back to her, he grabbed at the waist of his jeans again.

What was that supposed to mean?  Marigold shook her head and stepped into the foyer, waiting for him to call her.  She listened to the rustle of his clothes and then the creaking of the massage table hinges.

“I’m ready,” he called.

She stepped, then paused, hoping he wasn’t feeling overly cheeky and had not done anything else but lie face down on the table with a blanket cover.  When she entered the living room, she breathed a sigh of relief. Clearly, the pain was enough to supersede the other urges.

Marigold stopped beside him and pressed a hand to his shoulder to let him know she was there. He lifted his head from the rest and glanced at her. “Huh?”

“Do I need to make any adjustment to the headrest?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he said, lowering his face back into the headrest. “Let’s do this.”

Marigold grinned. “Yes, let’s.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure you read Chapter 18, posted Tuesday, the 6th! Thank you, one and all. You are amazing!

Tom forced himself to think of everything horrible and disgusting while Marigold carefully spread oil over his skin in long, sweeping movements, first across his back from side to side, then up and down his spine, tickling his sides and coming to a stop on his lower back, just at the rising curve of his arse.

He sucked in a breath and held it. This was a bad idea. After what just happened? With the hard-on from hell that refused to abate pressing uncomfortably into the table beneath him? Yes, the second worst decision of his life had to be allowing her to massage him.  The first worst decision of his life was taunting her by undressing and then proceeding to shove her against a wall and kiss her senseless.

Marigold giggled above him. “Calm down. Just breathe normally and don’t tense up or you’re not going to get any benefit from this.”

He groaned out an answer. “Do you think it’s easy laying here with your hands all over me?”

“No,” she murmured. “I don’t doubt it’s difficult, but it’s the only way I can take your pain away.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I’ll just do the tea, then.”

Marigold chuckled. “But where’s the fun in it? Besides, it’ll give us both time to talk.”

He scowled. “I _can_ talk over tea.”

“This is so much more fun, though.”

“Maybe for you,” he said. “All I want to do is bend you over this table and—”

She sighed. “Do you have condoms?”

Tom tried not to feel any amount of pride that she expected him to be able to perform to the tune of needing more than one condom, but he couldn’t control his wide smile. Nor could he control the renewed flow of blood to his cock. What made it all the worse was that he knew he wouldn’t be able to relieve that pain now. “Not with me. Do you?”

Marigold huffed and moved around to stand at the head of the massage table.  He felt her heat as she leaned over slightly, her fingers digging into his scalp at the nape of his neck, kneading into his shoulders then spreading her hands down his back on either side of his spine. Then she dragged them back up his sides to his shoulders before repeating the movement.  

Tom focused on the crimson paint on her toes. Why were painted toes sexy? He’d never understood. Maybe it was because he knew she was also wearing an impossibly hot dress—a simple old-fashioned navy and white polka dotted sundress—to complete the look of wholesome temptress. When she’d waltzed back downstairs after getting cleaned up, it had taken him more than a few minutes to cool his blood with the judicious use of not looking at her.

“Do you?” he asked again.

“No,” she said. “I have no problem picking some up, but I just haven’t had the need to have them.”

Tom relaxed at the thought that it meant she hadn’t been in a relationship recently, or at least doing anything that required the use of condoms. But then he realized what a hypocritical thing that was, because he certainly hadn’t been a monk.

“When was the last time you…”

Marigold tutted softly. “It’s been awhile.” He was just about to ask her to clarify, but she cleared her throat. “Ten years.”

“Ten years?” he exclaimed. “How can anyone live—”

“It’s easy when you’re not getting what you need from your partners,” she replied.

“You’re saying they didn’t know how to fuck?”

He could almost hear Marigold roll her eyes at his outburst. “No, they were okay. I just wasn’t… it didn’t satisfy me. I always felt like there was something missing, you know? Not just from the sex, but the relationship or whatever they were in general to me.”

Tom didn’t reply because the comment sounded disturbingly reminiscent of the feelings he had about his relationships—about most, or _all_ , of them, actually. He fell in love, yes. Could even be a decent boyfriend. Sex took care of his needs. But it was never enough to make him feel… whole? Was it possible that he needed someone else to feel whole? Or was it his own fault he never felt whole? It was the reason he made arrangements with women to tend to his urges, but never felt like trying for more because it wasn’t worth it. He always knew what the outcome would be.

What did she mean, though? That she thought _he_ would satisfy her? That he was the missing part of her troubles? Of course, he’d try his hardest to please her—sexually, if not in other ways, but it put an enormous amount of pressure on him. He wanted to live up to her expectations. He wanted to be all of that for her. God, maybe even in the relationship-y, touchy-feely part. And he’d _never_ wanted that. He felt the tug, deep in his belly… no, in his heart. In the deepest part of him, reaching out for her, wanting to envelope her in his embrace and never let go.

This was insane. All this after a kiss? What a kiss it’d been, though. He certainly had never been in the middle of an earthquake while kissing.

“Tom?” Marigold asked softly. Unobtrusively. Unsure.

“Hmm?”

She sighed. “I need to tell you something.”

He tensed. Okay, here was the other shoe. “About?”

“Violet,” she replied. “About something she did.”

He frowned. “Okay…”

Marigold continued her work on his back as she took in a few more fortifying breaths, her hands gradually creating paths of white hot heat on his skin not at all related to his sexual awareness of her. “Violet cursed you.”

He barked out a laugh, but then he sobered. He felt the tingly heat of her magic weaving around his back and digging into his skin, and he was about to brush off her assertion that Violet could have cursed him?

“Go on,” he said.

“In the journal you read earlier, there was more in other journal entries,” she said. “My grandmother couldn’t repair herself physically or magically after they saved you. So she was dying. In fact, she died on April 30th— the anniversary is tomorrow night—the same year you were saved. Violet couldn’t handle her grief and began separating from working with your father and eventually worked a spell that would keep you and me away from each other.”

“Huh?” he asked. He felt like he was missing more information. “Why would it be so important to keep us apart?”

She sucked in another breath, and let it out. The warm air spread over his shoulder as she leaned down to reach his lower back. “Rose had intuition and foresight like I do—like I did with the car accident. Remember?”

“Uh, alright,” he said. He still wasn’t sure he believed in that part of her abilities. But, okay, he’d go with it for now.

“Well, they saw that there was maybe more in store for both of us being together in the future,” she said. “However, Violet worked a spell that would prohibit that from happening, as revenge.”

“So now you’re trying to get me to believe that there’s some sort of cosmic push saying we were meant to be together, that we’re soulmates, and that it’s written in the fabric of time that our relationship is incontrovertible? This _is_ fiction.”

Marigold groaned and stepped away from him. “I’m done. You can get dressed. I _knew_ you were going to be like this if I told you.”

He quickly shifted into a sitting position, grasping the blanket around his waist to provide him with as much coverage as possible with the movement. She was turned away wiping off her hands, anyway. He ran his own hand through his hair. “I’m trying, Marigold. I am. But this is just so… _out there_.”

“Open your damn eyes, Tom,” she said. “You flayed open your hand in a way that it would normally require stitches and leave a nasty scar. I made all of it disappear. I just healed your back, more than a massage ever has. Magic is real. What I am saying is real and true, as real and true as you and me standing right here staring at each other.”

He rolled his shoulders and shifted his hips. No pain. At all. Even the best massage he’d had never made him feel this good.

“You said you believed in me,” she added. Her voice cracked with emotion, wrenching his heart. “Well, try _actually_ believing in me. I’m not some certifiable crazy woman who’s trying to bamboozle you or trap you in something that’s going to cause you some damage. I’m telling you the truth. _My_ truth. And I want you to see that though you might not understand it or have the same abilities as I do, you’re bound into all of this, too.”

He held his hands out. “What do you want me to say? That I’m suddenly madly in love with you? If this is true, then why don’t I feel like that?”

Marigold threw her arms up in disgust. “No. That’s not how it works, Tom. What I’m saying is that we’re meant to be together, somehow, and that we’re more powerful together. Fuck, I want to fucking jump you right now and not let you up for air, but I can’t say that what I’m feeling is love. Certainly not right now. Right now, I feel resentment at the fact that you’re so stuck up here,” she said, motioning to his head, “that you’re not willing to see a good fucking thing standing right in front of you. Do you get that?”

He stared back at her, not knowing what to say.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. “Please put all the blankets and towels in the laundry.”

With that, she stomped off to the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut with enough force to shake the walls and rattle the picture frames. The one painting he’d looked at earlier, after he’d stepped back to steady himself during the quake, made his stomach clench. Had that been—was that a—

Tom shook his head. It was ridiculous. But it _was_ weird. Were there even earthquakes in this part of England?

With a heaving sigh, he quickly pulled on his boxers and gathered up the blankets for the laundry.  Eventually, he made his way upstairs with the rest of his clothes in hand, intending to go straight to his room and fall asleep. He was exhausted. But something made him stop by her door. He stood still in the quiet night, listening. Listening for what? He didn’t know. Well, that was until he heard a soft sniffle.

God, he was such a tosser.  Tom raised his hand and lightly knocked on the white painted wood, waiting for her to answer him.

She cleared her throat, but it didn’t help her voice, now gravelly with emotion. “What do you want?”

“May I come in, please?”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Tom,” she called.

He turned the door handle and poked his head inside. “I thought we already established that with our lack of prophylactics.”

The comment seemed to diffuse the situation a little bit, at least, with her lips cracking open in a watery chuckle. Tear tracks streaked down her cheeks as she reached for a tissue on the nightstand beside her.  She’d changed into fleecy pajama bottoms and tank top and sat on the edge of her bed, hugging a throw pillow to her body.

For the first time, it really hit him how much he _did_ care about her and that finding her in such a state—that he was the reason for it—made him wither. He so wanted to be better for her, but he couldn’t because he wasn’t willing to look beyond himself and his issues. After what they talked about in the car ride back from Cambridge, it made sense to him. She wanted someone—anyone—who would understand her and really allow her to be her witchy self without fear of backhanded comments or always being thought less of. He did not, at all, think less of her, but he certainly hadn’t made that clear enough.

“I’m an arse,” he said.

She nodded. “Yes, you are.”

He stepped into the room, refusing to acknowledge her sound of protest and dropped to the floor on his knees in front of her. The movement forced her to look at him, her eyes growing wide with the realization that he was still naked but for his boxers. To her credit, she didn’t move away from him. He liked her bravery, maybe even relished in and loved it—he was still surprised she lasted for as long as she did staring him down while he undressed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Grabbing her hands, he held them between his, engulfing the delicate things with his. “I really am. I’m trying to be better, but it’s difficult.”

Marigold released a shuddering sigh. “It’s not all you, Tom. I just thought—Violet cursed you and that’s reason why it’s been so weird between us. Why we keep fighting. And I thought that after kissing or touching you more to break the curse, it would mean all this would be easier between us. But it’s not. All I feel is some sort of thrumming string connecting us, needing to be plucked like a guitar string, and like I’ll never have enough of you. But it’s tough for me to level with what my body and soul want when you’re not meeting me halfway with the mind.”

Tom inched closer to her until she had to spread her legs to allow him between them. Her thighs dropped open with little provocation and he slipped into the spot, hips pressed against the bed, pushing against her warm core. But that wasn’t the reason why he did it. She was right about the thrumming connection. Even _he_ felt that, simmering between them. Especially when they touched. It was exhilarating and terrifying.

“I think you need to start from the beginning. There’s a lot of things not making sense,” he said.

She bit her bottom lips and hung her head. “You have to promise to _listen_ , though.”

“I will.”

Marigold nodded, patting the bed. “Will you come lay with me?”

He looked at the bed again. Did he really want to tempt himself? Who was he kidding? Of course he did, as long as he didn’t have to leave her. He wanted to be with her. A quiet voice in the back of his head wanted to add _forever_ to that thought, but he quickly pushed it down.

Tom got up from the floor and walked around the bed while she dove beneath the duvet like it’d be some sort of acceptable forcefield to keep him away. She was terribly mistaken if she thought that was going to work. He climbed into bed, underneath the covers, and grabbed her around the waist, locking his arm there.  She didn’t fight, though. Just sighed with resignation and maneuvered a turn to look at him.

This was how they remained while she explained everything about her aunt and grandmother, about how they were something called “twin flames,” which apparently was what he and Marigold were—except their connection was probably not platonic. He agreed with that, considering that he wasn’t feeling anything platonic about her, not with her soft curves fitting perfectly into his hard ridges.

Then Marigold explained how Violet cursed him by baking the curse into a lemon cake and delivered it every year after to keep reinforcing the magic. How it eventually started to break down over time, allowing more and more to happen, for their souls to find each other.  

He told her about the time he went hiking with his university girlfriend in Buff Wood—the forest outside her home—where he passed out and ended up in the nettles. She said that probably had to do with the curse. Whether he knew it or not, something was driving him to get to that place where he might find her. He agreed with her; hadn’t he thought the pub was cursed only a few days ago while talking to his father about magic? He hated nature hikes and he was near breaking up with his girlfriend at the time. Something _else_ drew him to Hatley.

And what about all their coincidental meetings since? The randomness of the estate agency fuck up and her rental of his house? Really, what was the probability of that happening if there wasn’t something _more_ making it happen? The fact that the renovators at her cottage were taking so long, forcing her to stay in London so they might eventually meet? Then every time after? He’d never taken much stock in coincidence before, but with all this stacked against everything else… well, it seemed to be making sense to him. That there was, indeed, a cosmic force he did not understand pushing them together.

Could it be true? Was it possible that all of this was real? That he and Marigold had something only written about in fantastical fairytales and super cheesy romance novels?

That magic and the supernatural were real, living things?

He sucked in a breath and drew her closer to him, tightening his arms until her chest pressed flat against him. Then he kissed her, soft and slow, seeking answers in her lips. They were smooth and sweet and oh so tender. He hadn’t been lying when he threw out the _Henry V_ line. There was something purely magical in their kiss.

Every time their lips touched, his heart sped up and an invisible connection tingled to life. It was shimmery gold and bright warmth—more than anything he’d ever felt with another woman. More than sexual need and more than love, it was the all-consuming sense that he was exactly where he was supposed to be and no matter what he thought or did, his completeness and happiness as a man—as a person—were with her.

She was his home, and he was hers. 

Like Goldilocks and her bears, this thing between them was neither too hot or too cold, too hard or too soft. It was comfort and safety; it was acceptance. It was _just_ right.

The problem was, as it always had been, not fucking it up. He couldn’t lose her now, and he endeavored to do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen. Then he’d wrestle his hope back from Pandora and wait it out.

“I should probably go to bed,” he murmured in her hair, then brushed his lips across her forehead.

“Stay,” she said. “Please?”

He couldn’t refuse her. Not even with all the unanswered questions still swirling in his head.

Tom leaned over her body and pulled the bedside lamp chain. The room swam in darkness but for the faint silvery moonlight shining in through the diaphanous curtains covering the windows.  He relaxed against her, listening to her breathing, feeling the gentle beating of her heart against his, learning their rhythm until, at last, he drifted off to sleep.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all! Here be adult situations. You've been warned.

Marigold came awake when the bed beside her dipped down far enough that she rolled forward on the mattress, straight into the warm and hard person sitting on the edge.  She cracked open an eye to look at him, just to make sure it wasn’t some scary intruder and actually the person she had fallen asleep beside the night before. It was Tom, but he was freshly showered and dressed, carrying with him two paper coffee cups.  Meaning he’d left the house and been back.

“Coffee,” he offered, “two sugars, and a ton of cream.”

It did something funny to her heart knowing that he had already learned how she took her coffee. 

“You can be really observant when you want to be.” Marigold mumbled as she turned her face into the pillow and shut her eyes again. 

She felt like she’d been put through the wringer after last night, or chewed up by some mythical beast and spit back out to suffer the pain. Emotionally, she was drained. And on top of that, she’d expended a lot of energy in her magic in the last twenty-four hours without refilling it. Frankly, she just wanted to curl back up and go back to sleep for a few more hours. But she could tell, from the light coming in through the gauzy curtains, that her day was wasting and she needed to get back to work. Besides, gardening would help her feel better. It was just a matter of convincing herself to leave the comfort of her bed.

“What time is it?” she asked, pulling herself up by her hands and resting back against the headboard.

“Seven-thirty.”

Marigold grabbed the coffee and tipped it back into her mouth, enjoying the searing heat flooding her throat and stomach. The bitter jolt made her shiver. “Thank you.”

He grinned and leaned in. His lips brushed across hers lightly, sending a warming thrill through her, no matter how chaste he’d made it seem. Certainly, it was nothing like last night’s exchange, but this—a simple peck good morning—was a bit alarming. How was she ever going to do anything if every time he so much as got near her she wanted to pin him to the ground and ride him until they were both sore?

“I didn’t hear you get up,” she said.

“I’ve been up, gone, and done,” he replied, sipping his own coffee. “You sleep like the dead.”

Marigold laughed. “I thought you already knew that… that’s why you got so far into your bed without me hearing you the first night we met. Well, re-met.”

He scratched the beard on his jaw he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. Marigold licked her lips, wondering what it would feel like as it rasped against her skin. As tempted as she was to try it out, she knew she had to be good. There were too many things to do before tonight and not enough time to do them, and that was  _if_  she could convince Tom to cooperate by leaving her alone to prepare for her solo bonfire rituals.

“Now that you mention it,” he said, grinning, “I  _was_  bumping into a lot of things in the dark. Making so much noise.”

“Probably better that I was still sleeping, though,” she said. “Or else I would have had enough time to secure a weapon.”

He laughed loudly at that. “Oh, yes, I seem to remember you threatened me with your judicious use of kick boxing.”

The rush of heat on her face was impossible to hide as that night replayed in her head. At least they could laugh about it now. A mere two days ago, they would have gotten into another argument over her intentions and whatever else Tom could drudge up. But now, it seemed, like a weight had been lifted. She thought that once the spell was lifted, everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be. That all the negative things wouldn’t be negative anymore.

She forgot, though, that humans were a sum of their experiences and no amount of magic could take those away, they simply masked or hid them. The bad arguments and attitude they’d directed at each other were still going to be there—they had still happened. And that was going to take some time to overcome if they were ever going to make this work.

At least, he seemed to be willing to give it a try after their lengthy conversation in bed. She felt that he had at least warmed up to the idea of magic and curses a little more by the end of their conversation, especially when he started sharing his own experiences of odd occurrences. It seemed to finally make sense to him. How much sense? Marigold could scarcely know, but she figured it was enough that he’d stayed with her, held her through the night, and brought her coffee this morning.

And anyone who plied her with coffee first thing without attempting to speak to her about anything of import was a winner in her books.

“I also picked up some danishes,” he said. “They’re downstairs.”

“Awesome.”

He nodded. “And I called in reinforcements.”

“What?”

“Olly and Jess are coming up,” he said, glancing at his watch. “They should be here in a little bit.”

Marigold frowned. “Why’d you do that? We were perfectly fine on our own.”

Tom laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “See, I’m still paying Olly whether he’s actually doing anything for me or not. He should do anything I ask him to do. That’s part of being a personal assistant.”

“Tom, what were you thinking? It’s Sunday morning. You couldn’t possibly have interrupted their weekend for something this inconsequential,” she moaned, setting the coffee on the table beside her.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up to face him.

“I thought you’d be relieved? There’s no way we’re going to get done what you had planned today with the two of us,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. “Yeah, but I don’t want Olly and Jess to hate me for this!”

“Trust me,” he said, getting up from his seat, “all I had to say to him was that I was at your cottage and I swear he was already jumping in his car. Probably so he can take the piss out of us.”

“Christ,” she muttered, raking her fingers through her hair.

Tom held his hands out, palms up in a defensive pose. “I only did it so we could get some help. Because I thought if we finished faster, then there was more time later for…”

“For… what?” She stared at him, daring him to say it. She had a pretty good idea as to  _why_  he’d already gone on a shopping trip this morning, and it wasn’t because he was super romantic and wanted to ply her with coffee and danishes. “You are such a man.”

“Hey!” he exclaimed. “That’s not fair. Quit putting words in my mouth.”

“But you thought it. Don’t tell me you didn’t grab a box of condoms while you were out.”

He frowned and lifted his hand, holding two fingers up. “Two, actually.”

“Two?!” She couldn’t help but laugh. “You think awfully well of your stamina. I’d like to point out that you wouldn’t be feeling this spry today if I hadn’t healed you after moving a few boxes yesterday. You really think you can manage working out in the garden all day and then go at it like rabbits?”

Tom scoffed, advancing on her, trying to crowd her. Probably to give her a mollifying kiss, to force her to stop talking, but she zigged away and stepped around him. He sighed. “I’d at least like to be given the opportunity to try.”

Marigold giggled. “I’m going to need a lot more attention than a ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’, sir.”

“Well, of course,” he grinned, stepping toward her again.

This time she stepped back, but found herself blocked by the bed. She knew where this was headed when her calves hit the bed frame. It wasn’t exactly a full football tackle that he executed next, but somehow, someway, she ended up on top of the bed with a hard, warm body deliciously hovering over her.

She giggled. “Okay, I’ll give you credit for that move. That was pretty smooth.”

“See, the trick is all in the misdirection,” he murmured and leaned down to pepper feather kisses along her jaw while he tickled her sides in the dip above her waist and higher near her breasts.

“Your magic tricks aren’t as subtle as mine.”

Marigold reached for him, clasping her hands on either side of his face, feeling the roughness of his day-old beard against her palms as she pulled him down to her lips. He started slow, resting his mouth on hers, breathing her in, licking the contour of her lips and nipping at the corner of her mouth and bottom lip.

Warmth flooded her body and pooled between her legs, and no matter how much she tried to quell the furious rhythm of her heart, it refused to listen to her. Not that she wanted it to listen, she only wished it weren’t so brutal, like nothing else she’d ever felt before. No man had ever made her feel this way, and though she knew  _why_  he was different, it still did nothing to prepare her for just how powerful her reaction was to him.

“We don’t have time,” she murmured against his lips, but it didn’t halt the downward trek of his right hand over her hip, or his long fingers playfully sweeping under the elastic band on the waist of her pajamas.

A rumbling chuckle worked its way up his throat and vibrated her lips as he kissed her. “We have plenty of time.”

“They could show up any minute.”

His lips curved in a smirk against her, dipping further down her chin until they landed on the crease between her throat and head. He sucked gently on the soft flesh. “Quit worrying about it, Ree.”

“You don’t understand just how easy it would be to not worry,” she said.

“Then just let go,” he replied. “Let me make you feel half as good as you made me feel last night.”

Gods, she knew shouldn’t trust him about this. There was no way they were going to be done in time to meet their guests—didn’t he know once this started, she wasn’t going to be able to stop? That she had no intention of letting him out of bed?

Her worries were stolen from her, obliterated in an instant when Tom’s hand plunged deep into her pajamas, past the cotton knickers she wore, and stilled against her center. The searing feeling of his fingers dancing across and groping, searching for her clit pulled a long, low moan from her mouth. She arched into him, digging her fingers into his biceps.

Bright white sparks of pleasure shot through every nerve in her body, setting her on fire.  _Fuck._  She hadn’t realized…

Ten years had been too long taking care of her own needs. She’d forgotten how amazing it was to have someone else worrying about her pleasure. Taking from her and giving back without orchestrating everything herself. Of course, this was different.  _More_  than anything that she’d felt even before she’d stopped ten years ago. Still, though, she wasn’t prepared for this. For  _him_.

“Fuck. You’re wet,” he growled against her throat, in the hollow between her clavicles. His tongue darted against her, then his teeth grazed the boney protrusion, tasting her skin and drawing a pleasurable tremor from her body. His fingers were very persuasive as they dipped further between her folds, teasing the hot flesh and slipping inside her, one long digit, then a second.

He didn’t let her relax or allow her to get used to his breath-stealing intrusion, rather setting up a rhythm that alternated between maddeningly slow, deliberately pounding, and fast feather-like caresses.

Marigold mewled against him, shutting her eyes and pressing her head back into the bed. Yes, she was wet. Dripping. She needed him in all ways, right this moment, and yet, a part of her wanted to string it out. Take their time discovering every little thing that made the other person’s toes curl. After all, there would only be this one first time together. Everything after wouldn’t be the same. Would it? That was impossible. The first discoveries were always the most exciting.

It felt delectably sinful, though, doing this, like they were some silly teenagers, not daring to take their clothes off and get to the point. They were like two kids fooling around in the backseat of a car in a dark parking lot, him fumbling along—okay, maybe not quite fumbling, he was so very determined and purposeful in his caresses—with her unable to control her reactions. Both rushing toward a release because they couldn’t wait and do it properly like adults with years of experience under their belts.

Thank goodness he  _wasn’t_  some unskilled teenager, she thought absently. He knew exactly where to find her sweetest, most sensitive spots, and all without a compass or a map. Each movement meant something, forced her body to climb higher toward the peak. Nothing was wasted in novice uncertainty; everything was gained in his complete confidence.

And damn, was it sexy.

She wanted to feel him, all of him, the soft skin she’d had a chance to have underneath her hands last night, and squeeze the roping and corded sinew of his body. Perhaps rake her short nails across his chest to mark him as hers. But it was almost impossible to mobilize her brain, to work her limbs to pull at the offending garments stuck between them. Instead, she settled for grasping at his shirt, and then twining her fingers in his soft curls as he dipped further, biting her pebbled nipples through her camisole as he flicked his thumb repeatedly across her clit.

“Jesus,” she whimpered, rising, her hips moving in time with him, searching for more friction as the spring deep within her tightened and tightened, stretching and tensing every muscle in her body like a rubber band. She was so close. So very, very close…

He left her breasts and kissed up her neck, landing on her lips before he hovered over her again. Was he watching her? Marigold opened her eyes. Yes, he was. With the intent look of a scientist executing an experiment, or a witch performing a spell, he studied her, pupils blown in intense blue eyes. She had his full concentration, and nothing— _nothing—_ had ever made her feel sexier.

Tom rested on a bent arm at her side, slowing his attention, effectively halting the careening locomotive screaming through every nerve ending in her body. She groaned in frustration, sensing,  _knowing_  what he was about to do. “Don’t do this to me, Tom.”

“What?” he teased, bending down and nipping at her earlobe.

“I  _need_ you,” she whined, writhing closer to him, trying to urge his wonderful, dexterous hand to continue its glorious assault on her sex.

He chuckled lowly. “This is payback for doubting me.”

“Mmm… payback?” she muttered, aware that the pressure on her clit was growing lighter and lighter and she felt more and more unsatisfied. Empty. Fuck, she needed to come.

“Mm-hmm,” he said. “You don’t think I can go all night?”

Marigold frowned. “Not to the tune of two boxes of condoms. You’d have to be… I don’t know… a god or something.”

He laughed, his head thrown back in delight. Then he looked down at her, eyes trained intently on hers, the corner of his lips curving in a debonair smirk. “Well, you know…”

She playfully smacked his shoulder, grabbing for the hand in her pajama bottoms as he made infinitesimal movements to leave her sex. Marigold clamped her thighs around him, wishing she spent more time in a gym… well,  _any_  gym, for that matter… to make it more difficult for him to extract his limb. But he was stronger. And it was gone.

She was, all at once, completely bereft.

“Don’t go,” she cried. “Please.”

He shook his head, drawing his hand up to his lips, sucking a finger into his mouth. “Perfect,” he moaned.

Marigold grabbed for him, setting a hand over the hard bulge in his jeans. She squeezed, delighting in the way the muscles in his jaw tensed and his eyelids fluttered. “Do you really want to do this? Choose wisely, Thomas.”

He took hold of her questing hand, entwining his fingers with his. Then he deliberately—slowly—dragged her hand up to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “I’ll be in just as much pain as you.”

She groaned. “You’ve clearly been put on this earth to torment me. Now you’ve just found a new way. I hope you’re happy.”

“This is so much more fun, though,” he said.

“I hope you know two can play at this game,” she warned.

He grinned. “Do your worst.”

“I’d also like you to remember you’re playing with fire,” she said. “I am a witch. I know things. I can make your life a living hell.”

Tom drew a finger, the same finger that only minutes before had been driving her toward ecstasy, from her forehead, around the shell of her ear, down her cheek, to settled under her chin, lifting it to align their mouths. She shivered under his light stroking. “You keep threatening hell, but all I’m seeing is heaven.”

“I don’t know whether to kick you out of my bed for a line that trite or to hold you down and fuck you senseless.”

His eyes darkened at her words. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words died on his lips when they heard the front door open and slam shut.

“REE!”

_Asha!_

“Oh no!” Marigold said, sitting straight up, nearly bumping Tom’s head. Tom fell back on the bed, looking up at her in question. Here she was giving him a hard time about not having enough time before Olly and Jess showed up, and Asha was here before either of them. “We’ve gotta get up. It’s Asha. I completely forgot she was coming over this morning, too… we were…”

“Are you still in bed?” Asha yelled, her feet on the stairs. “You told me to be here at eight in the morning. I dragged myself out of bed on Sunday for you, and you’re having a lie-in? Seriously, what I do for—”

Asha froze in the doorway, the master bedroom situated as it was at the top of the staircase.  Then she looked back and forth between them, her face burning bright red before she turned away.

“Uh,” she said shakily, “yeah, I’ll just be downstairs. When you’re, um, ready…”

Marigold looked at Tom, who had a satisfied smirk on his face. He cleared his throat and yelled after her, “There’s danishes in the kitchen, Asha. Feel free to have some!”

“Right! Thanks,” she squeaked, bustling the rest of the way downstairs.

“And you were worried about Olly and Jess.”

“Shut up,” she said, jumping out of bed, making a mad dash to the bathroom. “Can you go heat up the coffee for me? It’s got to be tepid by now.”

He laughed. She heard the springs on the bed shift and his feet on the ground. “Sure thing.”

Marigold grabbed an old pair of cutoff shorts and a shirt from her closet, setting them on her sink while she hopped out of her pajama bottoms and camisole.  He wasn’t gone when she came back to her bedroom to fish through her chest of drawers for knickers and a bra. When she realized he wasn’t moving, she looked over her shoulder at him.

“What?”

“You’re, uh,” he said, motioning at her nakedness except for the exceedingly wet knickers covering her lower parts.

“You had your chance, buddy boy. You passed it up.” Marigold laughed, teasing him by tweaking a nipple. She delighted in his aggrieved moan.

“You play dirty,” he said.

Marigold shrugged. Not really. She hadn’t really thought about her state of undress when she went out for her clothing. She simply didn’t have any problem with her nudity. But what he didn’t know at the moment wouldn’t kill him.

“Consider it a preview, for later,” she said, walking over to him. She stood on her tiptoes to place a kiss on his lips and stepped away.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back against his chest when she tried to leave. “Don’t you dare do anything that will result in an orgasm without me.”

Marigold’s face warmed. “Never.”

With that, he released her with a playful pat on her arse and shove toward the bathroom. He grabbed her coffee cup and left with one more hungry look in her direction.

Marigold sighed and sagged against the bathroom door frame. How was she ever going to get through the day now?


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the wait on this one... had some decisions to make about how the rest of this tale was going to play out that slowed me down. Enjoy!

Somewhere between the top of the staircase and the bottom Tom realized he’d made a huge mistake. Not only had he unfairly played around with Marigold’s trust, but now he was paying the price for leaving her—leaving  _them_ —hanging. He was so hard it hurt, and nothing he did or thought would abate the erection straining painfully against the zipper of his jeans.

After last night, not being able to finish what they’d started, he figured he’d be able to handle today. Fuck was he wrong. This day was going to be complete and utter torture, and who knew how long it would take to finish their chores today? He might not even have a chance to touch her—well, at least, touch her how he craved to touch her—until late into the afternoon. Perhaps even into the evening.

And that wasn’t even considering whatever Marigold could do to make the situation worse. He saw that glimmer of challenge in her bright blue eyes as she’d turned and walked back into the bathroom to dress. Knowing that her presence, alone, was enough to send him into a state of discomfort, what could she do with a few well timed, heated glances in his direction… or worse, actually touching him?

Tom stopped for a moment, looking at the ceiling and groaning to himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his mind to go in other directions. Politeness dictated that he entertain Asha while Marigold readied for the day, but it did not dictate showing up in the kitchen with a rather visible hard-on just to talk to his lover’s best friend. Where was the protocol for  _that_  in all those etiquette books his mum had?

Finally, blissfully, he felt his pain begin to subside enough that it enabled a slight readjustment to restore propriety.  With a heavy sigh, he stepped into the dining room, and then into the kitchen where Asha sat at the round table, staring out the sliding doors onto an expanse of green field.  She seemed to be deep in thought, like she was trying to puzzle out what has going on, but ultimately never reaching any firm conclusion.

Her back stiffened when a floorboard squeaked with his weight. She turned to him, lifting a brow of accusation. “Thanks for the danish.”

“You’re, uh,” he said, scratching the back of his neck anxiously, “welcome.”

Silence filled the air between them. He usually found it so easy to fill the space with words, even when they meant nothing, and even in completely awkward situations. This time, though, he could find nothing to say between the short in his brain after what he’d been doing to Marigold and the particular unease that came with facing someone he had never met before.

Well, not met officially. His drunken night at the pub didn’t count, because he remembered little about it.

He busied himself by popping Marigold’s coffee into the micro and turned it on a low setting, just long enough to heat it back up for her. Then he turned to the sink and cleaned off his hands, though it somehow killed him to do it. Finally, Asha laughed.  He turned to find her shoulder shaking with mirth.

“I have to say,” Asha said, “I’m a  _little_  disappointed I didn’t get to see the whole package. Might have made the embarrassment worthwhile.”

That broke the ice and he slipped into the chair next to her, turning to face her. “I’m so very sorry… I didn’t know you’d be—”

She waved her hand and then ran it through her straight jet-black hair. “Clearly, Marigold didn’t even remember. I see how I rate. Though, I’ll admit, I don’t blame her.”

“She told me that you said you were stripping her of her fangirl card for letting me escape the first night at my place,” he said.

“Yes, it was an incredible lapse of judgement on her part,” Asha replied, “but I don’t think she needs the card anymore. I’m sure she’ll say the real thing’s better.”

He heard a soft cackle and then Marigold sailed into the room wearing what he could only describe as a cast-off costume from Daisy Duke. She looked ready for the beach, not a day spent gardening. Her frayed shorts barely covered her arse, and the sleeveless top she wore was so threadbare his eyes hungrily traced the exact outline of the hot pink triangles of a bikini top beneath it; he didn’t know what was worse—the fetching lacy bras he’d seen in her lingerie drawer, or the triangle bikini top tied as it was around her neck.

Whatever look she was going for, though, it hit the mark squarely; it was confirmation that Marigold was indeed evil and not above exploiting his weaknesses. Like this, Marigold was the literal embodiment of a teenaged Tom’s wet dream. How had she known?

 _Magic_ , a voice said to him, somewhere in the back of his mind. The thought made him chuckle. He really was losing it.

“The real thing  _is_  better,” Marigold said through a giggle, stopping beside him, close enough that he could feel her heat on his skin. She grabbed his chin and turned his head to the side and up slightly so she could lean down and plant a kiss on his cheek. He meant to turn and kiss her properly, but she’d already pulled away from him.

Tom caught Asha’s eyeroll. Asha sighed. “You realize you live in England, now, right? You’re going to freeze wearing that kit out there.”

“The sun’s out,” Marigold replied with a hint of humor in her tone. Though he couldn’t see her, he figured her delectable mouth had twisted up into a half smile. She opened and shut the microwave, sipping her coffee. “I’m plenty warm, thanks, Asha.”

Asha released an aggrieved groan and rolled her eyes again. “So is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on or…”

Marigold slipped into the chair across from Asha, but beside him. He reached out and set his palm flat high up on her bare thigh; he delighted in the way she tensed and shuddered under his touch. Two could totally play this game, and he wasn’t about to end up the loser. At least she understood that now. In response, she set her hand on top of his and shot him a warning glance.

“Could you stop feeling her up long enough to talk, Tom?” Asha asked pointedly, glaring at him.

Tom pulled his hand away and held both hands up to her in mock surrender. “Sorry. I see I won’t get any quarter from you.”

Asha shook her head. “Hell no, you won’t. Not after how you’ve treated her.”

“We’ve talked it out,” Marigold said.

“Talked it or felt it out?” Asha asked.

Tom laughed. He liked Asha.

“Both?” Marigold frowned and then let out a quiet giggle. “We, uh, we kissed last night and it broke the curse.”

Tom took a moment to watch Asha’s reaction to the news. He knew very little about the woman, but what he  _did_  know was important: she was Marigold’s oldest friend. They’d known each other pretty much their whole lives, so Asha had been around long enough to learn about this ‘magic’ Marigold kept trying to explain to him.

He didn’t know what he wanted to see. Confirmation that another person believed? That he—or his father, for that matter—hadn’t been duped by a skilled con artist? Despite their many conversations over the last few days—and the demonstrations—his brain still had trouble wrapping around this knew knowledge. He accepted it for what it was, as he saw it, but he needed confirmation that he wasn’t also insane or that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

“There was an earthquake,” Tom muttered.

Asha’s dark eyes narrowed at him. “You’re telling me you believe now?”

He shrugged. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve never put much thought into it,” Asha said. “It doesn’t matter to me what she is or isn’t, or what she believes in or doesn’t. She’s just my friend. And as my friend, I accept it.”

Ah, point received.

Asha shifted in her seat and hunched forward, folding her arms on the table. “Look, Tom, I’m an astrophysicist. My whole life is based on numbers, science and fact. I get where you’re coming from, but I’ve known Marigold and her family for thirty-two years, and things happen around them that never makes any logical sense. Maybe there’s a physical, scientific reason that they’re different and can do things that we can’t comprehend, that we have not yet discovered or been able to name. I mean, maybe they’re special hominid mutants or something, but whatever it is, it’s there. So you’re better to just accept that your girlfriend is different than you and what she’s telling you is all true.”

“Asha,” Marigold said, warning in her voice. “We had a long talk last night. He knows all this.”

“I don’t care,” Asha replied. “He needs to hear it from a lay person. I can see it in his eyes.”

Tom hung his head and nodded silently. He couldn’t look at either woman. His relationship with Marigold had grown in leaps and bounds this weekend, and even though he’d reached a point of acceptance last night, there remained a part of him still unable to let go. That part of him, the one that he once freely opened and shared with others, had been stomped all over one too many times. He wasn’t about to set it free again until he was absolutely, positively sure about this stuff.

About where he and Marigold were headed.

Marigold breathed in a long, audible breath and squeezed his hand. “He’s trying. That’s all I ask.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Asha said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to castrate him if he fucks up as bad as he did before. There’s no curse or whatever now. Now if something happens it’ll only be because he’s a bag of dicks.”

“Asha!”

Tom glanced at Asha as she shrugged nonchalantly. She grinned at him. “He needs to know that though you like to make it seem like you’re a lone wolf, you’ve got people in your corner.”

“You make it sound like we’re part of the mob,” Marigold laughed. “Besides, I’ll just turn him into a toad if he pisses me off.”

Tom’s back stiffened and he looked over at Marigold. Maybe he didn’t quite believe it, but he still opened his mouth. “You can’t actually do that, can you?”

Marigold batted his hand away and stood up from her seat. She went to grab a danish, but stopped midway to the countertop when a phone started ringing. From her pocket, she withdrew her mobile and pressed it to her ear. How had that even fit in such a tiny pocket?

“Hey, Jim!” She smiled into the phone and glanced at Tom, leaving little doubt to which “Jim” she was talking to.

Tom perked up instantly. Why the hell was his father calling her, and how did he have her number?

“Yes, he’s here,” she said. There was some indistinguishable Scottish droning on the other end of the line. “Oh, he showed up Friday night. Been here ever since… yep, he did… we’ve come to a truce, I think.”

Tom frowned. Why hadn’t he had the decency to call him directly? Was his father really that angry with him? “Can I talk to him, Ree?”

Marigold shook her head. “Oh, yeah, he can be a stubborn arse. You have  _no_  idea… No! He can’t get that from you. You’re too sweet.”

_Way to butter him up, Marigold._

“Yeah, we’d love that!” Marigold said, glancing at him again with confusion etching her features. “I thought Tom said you were headed back home to Glasgow?”

Da wasn’t back home? Where had he gone? It wasn’t like him to abandon his plans after he made them; though Marigold probably didn’t understand just how strange this news was, she seemed to have some notion from his own body language and the expression on his face. Tom figured, though, there was a lot he didn’t know about his father. Especially if he went off the fact that his father had a friend who was a self-proclaimed witch for all these years. Oh, and he’d asked said witch to save his son with magic. What else didn’t he know about his own father?

“Well, we had planned to do some gardening today, and Tom called up Olly and Jess, and my friend, Asha, is here to help, too. We can make a party of it,” she replied. “It’ll actually be nice, it’s Beltane Eve, and I’ve missed having big gatherings… N-no… we don’t have to dance naked around a fire. What do you mean Violet took you to a bonfire?”

This conversation was too wild, from start to finish, and Tom didn’t know what to focus on first: the fact that his father had possibly participated in other witchy rituals—while nude, or that his father was somewhere nearby, not back home, or that Tom felt unusually miffed that his own blood hadn’t called him. No. His own father had called Marigold, directly, as though it were a foregone conclusion that Tom would eventually make it to the cottage… and stay there.

“Well, I’ve got some things I can whip up, but we didn’t get a lot at the grocery yesterday,” she explained. “You don’t have to… we can send the boys out later…no, okay, that’ll be great… I’ll text you with some things to pick up for me? Yeah, can’t wait—do you need directions or—No? Okay. Ta for now.”

Marigold removed the mobile from her ear and looked at the device for a very long minute, Tom stared at her in confusion. She frowned, turning her focus on him. “I think your father is more pushy and persuasive than you are.”

Tom laughed. “I come by it naturally, darling.”

“Clearly.”

“Now are you going to tell me why my father’s calling you, and not his own son?” Tom asked.

Marigold shrugged. “He loves me more than he loves you?”

“Aw, that was low,” Tom joked. He truly didn’t feel at all bad about that. He couldn’t remember the last time his father had approved of one of his girlfriends. Sure, a lot of it had to do with his previous involvement with Violet, but he knew, just from the dinner together early on, that his dad liked Marigold. A lot. Else he wouldn’t have made such a big point about suspending his holiday in London to supposedly go back to Glasgow in protest of his son’s hardheadedness.

“Apparently, he never made it past Oxford,” she said. “Stopped in to see an old friend for a few days and now he’s headed over here. He wants to see the cottage now that it’s redone, and I’m sure, to check up on you. To make sure you’re behaving. He’s bringing groceries and said he’s making his famous bannocks.”

“Why bannocks?”

Marigold grinned, her blue eyes glittering. “Your father knows a bit more about pagan holidays than I thought. It’s a tradition to have bannocks at Beltane.”

“It is?”

She nodded.

He tried accessing the part of his memory that had things to do with useless information—well, what once had been useless information—to see if he could recall anything. Anything at all that might make him feel secure in the situation, that might make him seem better than the ignorant idiot he was. It was a foreign concept for him to be so ill-prepared and bereft of knowledge, making it impossible for him to contribute to the conversation.

“I know nothing about Beltane,” he finally admitted.

Sure, he knew about May fairs and Maypoles and that the day was pagan in its origins, but beyond such basic information, he had no familiarity with it. It had never been important for him to learn or retain it for future use. “So I guess it’s today?”

Marigold giggled and walked around behind him once more, dragging her fingers playfully across the back of shoulders and teasingly over the nape of his neck. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

“Very funny.” He frowned. Asha snorted at them.

“May—Beltane—Eve is today, Beltane is tomorrow,” Marigold explained. “You know what Samhain is?”

 _That_ he did know a little more about. He nodded. “Halloween.”

“Sure,” Marigold replied, with a shrug, like that wasn’t quite the correct answer, but because she was working with an idiot, she let it slide. “Beltane is the opposing day of Samhain, in the seasonal year. Samhain ends the harvest season, preparing for death and cold and winter. Beltane brings forth the sun and life anew.”

“It’s a fertility festival, then,” he finished.

“At least you’re not a complete dunce, Tom Hiddleston.”

Her grin widened before she bit into her danish. She chewed it slowly and swallowed, refusing to move her eyes away from his, the action somehow tense and heated. Ravenous. It was both erotic, in a way, and disturbing. Like she was setting him up to devour him in just such a way, teasing him, forcing him to think about everything having to do with fertility and sex and… her.

Tom shifted uncomfortably at the renewed stiffness pressing against his jeans. Oh, the day was going to be horrible. Long, painful, and horrible, not being able to touch her. Caress her. Make her come. All he wanted to do was give her gods a run for their money and their silly fertility festival. But that eventuality seemed to be stretching further and further into the distance with the more people they invited to the cottage.

“That’s why I planned my planting for today and tomorrow. The way Violet used to explain it to me, it was planting the seed of life into the womb of the earth,” Marigold said. “It’s my favorite way to celebrate. Well, I guess I should say it  _was_.”

“ _Was_?” he asked, lifting a questioning brow.

She giggled and tapped his shoulder where her hand lay. “I’m sure you can figure out a better way to celebrate. Later, I mean.”

Tom smirked. “Ah, I see.”

Marigold leaned over and gave him a soft, quick kiss. Her kisses always held the promise of more. Lots more. Made his blood sing and his cock twitch with need. It felt like they’d been doing things like it for years, it was so natural. Normal. Real and amazing and he’d never been this comfortable with another woman in his entire thirty-six years. How was it possible?

“Thought so,” she murmured.

He locked his arms around her waist, refusing to let her go again. Would it be  _so_  bad to drag her off for a little while? Frankly, he couldn’t care less what they all thought of him. They’d understand.

Maybe.

“This is revolting,” Asha interjected. It popped the momentary bubble building up around them, trying to seal them off from the rest of the world. “I’m going to leave if I have to be subjected to this all day.”

Marigold pressed her palms to his chest and pushed away from him. He was strong enough to hold her still, but he released his grip.  She turned to Asha and grinned. “I promise we’ll be good. We should probably go get things ready while we wait for Olly and Jess.”

Asha popped up from her seat and was already at the kitchen door leading out to the garden before she said, “Thank goodness!”

He caught Marigold’s amused giggle before she glanced at him. Her gaze dropped to his crotch, then shot back up to his face. “You might want to find looser trousers if you don’t want to embarrass yourself, Thomas. That can’t be comfortable.”

“Looser trousers are worse,” he said. “Trust me. I’ve seen enough pictures of myself to know. It has a mind of its own.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it does.”

“We could go upstairs,” he said. “Quickly. Just take the edge off.”

“Ha!” She batted at the hand he tried grabbing her with again. Marigold dodged him and walked toward the door. “You did this, now you’ve got to live with the consequences.”

With that, she was gone. And he was still hard. And in pain. And thinking about all the different ways he planned to have her before the night was out.

Beltane gods willing, of course.


	22. Chapter 22

Wearing next to nothing wasn’t such a fantastic idea, after all. Not only was it a little chilly every time Marigold stepped out of the direct path of the sun, but the bark and splinters from the piles of wood she was busy relocating to the large bonfire pit just past the edge of the forest stabbed and scraped up her skin. It was worse as she walked with an armful from the wheelbarrow to the growing pile that sat just outside the stone fire ring.

Even so, she steeled herself to the task, and the momentary discomfort, to prove Asha wrong… and to drive Tom insane. Because he deserved it more than he ever deserved anything else; his aches, no doubt, had to be throbbing a million times more painfully than hers. He did it to himself, though, and he had to learn—eventually—that he was never going to win. She wouldn’t let him.

Marigold dumped the last armful on top of the woodpile and brushed her hands off on her shorts. A trickle of cold sweat teased its way down her cleavage into her bikini stop, a shiver blooming from the spot where it stopped and fanned out to the rest of her body. The slight breeze picked up and ruffled her hair, and the ancient trees swayed above her in the gust. Trunks of ash and oak and silvery birch creaked and moaned an earthy tune and mixed with the vital, humming energy seeping from the earth.

Her family had used this meadow for years—centuries—for the more celebratory rites of their craft; some of the magic remained in an imprint of energy on the land, sunk deep in the ground, hiding out in the nooks and crannies of the large stones surrounding the mossy field. It was similar to stepping into the sanctuary of a church, the overwhelming power of fervent prayer and myth coalescing together to take away a penitent’s breath and awe the unbaptized. The same energy, there in those churches, ebbed and flowed, like it did here in this little clearing, neither belief more right or wrong than the other, all of them different languages to explain the same connection with the spiritual.

She sighed and then breathed in deeply, flashes of memory filling her head. The land had held too much power for her mind to wrap around as a child; in some ways, it still did. Marigold had found the sensation to be oppressing, hot and heavy, too much to take in all at once for a neophyte who didn’t yet know her own power.

But now she found it… soothing. Invigorating, even, as she slipped down onto a low boulder and breathed in the cool, crisp air scented with spring flowers and wet earth. It burned her lungs until she blew it all back out, sending with the breath all her pent-up frustration, all that remained from her arguments with Tom and from earlier in the morning when he’d left her hanging and unfulfilled.

Cora had been right. Marigold needed to reconnect with the land. To dance around a fire and give an offering to her ancestors for peace. Despite working through the curse the previous evening, this still needed to be done. She needed to make her peace, especially with Violet, and move forward. Say goodbye to the woman who had been like a second mother to her, once and for all, and move on to grander things and finding contentment in her own abilities.

All that would have to be done later, though, after she’d said her farewells to her friends that night. Cora had been specific about doing this part alone; everything else would be fun to share until she sent them home for the night.

She heard laughter and yelling in the distance, not loud enough that she could understand what they were saying to each other, but clear enough that not even the primordial song ricocheting off limb and trunk could hide their joy. It forced a smile to her lips; she’d never been one to have many friends, finding it easier to remain alone rather than let others get to know her. Asha was different because they’d grown up together, so neither of them knew any different as babies, and Asha accepted her slowly manifesting powers because of it. Other people, though… she’d never been able to trust them.

Living in New York City made it easy to be a loner, hidden in plain sight. People didn’t become friends in New York unless someone specifically made the effort, and if it wasn’t made, people were largely ignored. She’d luxuriated in it, hiding away from her father’s family and from other people who would look at her like she was insane. Thousands of witches before her were loners. That’s why people started hunting them. Because they were weird lonely old widows on the edges of society. Different. Marched to their own drums and knew things. Scary things.

But now…

Now she had an instant group of friends. And it was strange and terrifying, but also amazing. Especially since they all knew what she was and didn’t run away, Tom not included. She realized, sitting there on the worn boulder, that she wouldn’t change it for the world. Life was looking up. All those cryptic dreams of Violet telling her to come ‘home’ had a true purpose. She’d been right. Violet had done a terrible thing in her curse, but she seemed to be atoning for it in other ways.

Marigold finally felt like her life made sense.

She leaned back, stretching her back on the convex curve of the smooth stone, memorizing the feel of the chilled surface through her clothing and pressing directly on her skin. Above her, fluffy white clouds floated across the bright blue sky, casting shadows and receding. It was truly a perfect day; she dare not voice her pleasure to the wind lest the other shoe deign to drop. To have the light, there had to be dark; it was always there, threatening to overtake and ruin. If she had learned nothing else, she still knew never to tempt the dark to surface.

Marigold closed her eyes and lay still, listening and attuning herself to her surroundings; the birds chirped, the trees sang their haunting melody, and her friends continued to laugh and work somewhere nearer the cottage. Within no time, she’d located the pulsing energy and latched onto it, replenishing her stores and orienting herself with the land once more.

Only the snap of a twig pulled her out of her meditation; she sat up and looked around for the intruder, be it wildlife or human. The trails within the public portion of the forest were not particularly close to this little copse, but hikers sometimes wandered off the marked path.

Tom stepped out of the line of trees, carefully edging around a large bush and into the clearing. He stopped immediately; his eyes drifted from her and followed the ring of standing stones enclosing the outermost circle and fire pit.  She saw the flare of curiosity in his eyes, even from fifty yards away. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he prowled across the glade and paused for a moment at a flat stone table, running his fingers over the ancient rock, silently considering it.

“Is this where the virgin sacrifices happen?” he finally asked.

Marigold wanted to laugh, but it also annoyed her. “Do you often go into places of worship and start asking flippant questions about the belief system?”

He chastened. “I’m sorry… I—”

“I know it was a joke, but offhanded comments like that are what fuel the rumors,” she said. “I’m not saying there weren’t ever sacrifices, but I don’t remember any account in our histories that say so specifically. We prefer saving, not sacrificing.”

“So, let me start again,” he murmured, apology in his tone, and stepped closer to her. “Da’s arrived. I said I’d come find you. You’ve been out here for awhile.”

Marigold nodded. “I’m almost done. Just reconnecting with my forest.”

“Reconnecting?” He frowned, trying to make sense of what she was saying to him. She knew he wouldn’t understand, simply because he’d never experienced such things.

Marigold smiled. “Yes. Like old friends.”

Tom sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s like praying,” she said. “Meditating. You find the thrum of the energy of the forest, and align your body and soul with it until you can feel the pulse inside of you. It brings peace. Well, it should, anyway.”

“How do you do it? Do you have to be a witch?” he asked.

She giggled and shook her head. “Nope. You wanna try?”

Tom cast a glance around the circle again, trepidation furrowing his brow. “It all feels very primeval.”

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

He blinked. “Yes. I trust you.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re not having this conversation again, Marigold,” he said flatly. “I trust  _you_.”

She sighed and scrambled off her boulder. “Go sit over there.”

“Where?”

“The altar,” she said, pointing to the stone table he’d been looking at a few minutes ago.

“It’s an altar?”

Marigold laughed. “Yes, like in church. But it has also served as a handy location for potluck dishes, on occasion.”

“Isn’t that sacrilegious?”

She shook her head and climbed onto the table herself. Tom followed, crossing his legs in the same fashion she did. It took him longer to find a comfortable spot—his long legs seemed to be a bit of an impediment for the position.

“We believe there aren’t many more things more sacred than nourishing our friends and our loved ones,” she said. “Placing food on this altar is like the Eucharist in a Catholic church, but different in its intentions.”

Tom sat silently on the rock, staring at her; if she squinted, she was sure she could see the gears in his brain turning, considering the information, internalizing it and adding it to his knowledge. To his understanding. In the beginning, when she’d first met him, he’d been a concrete wall, impenetrable and imposing. There were spikes in front of that wall, too, barbing his words and goading her into arguments into which she gladly jumped.

It was a relief, really, to have him fully invested in this—in her. To know that he was trying to understand this, made her whole body sigh and smile. His effort was all she asked for, even if he ultimately never understood what this all meant; if he let her be herself, then she would be fine.

Of course, she supposed, that only mattered if they stayed together.

Marigold closed her eyes and shook her head, desperately pushing away the thought that despite everything, whatever relationship they had might not ever really bloom.  She couldn’t let herself think like that. Not with this gorgeous man sitting in front of her, and the thrilling magnetic pull constantly causing her to gravitate toward him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, voice thick and gravelly.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I feel rather silly, and that years of Anglican teaching make my involvement in this—with you—quite wicked.” Tom grinned and scratched the back of his neck. “But I’m intrigued.”

Marigold giggled. “Well, you know, by the pricking of my thumbs…”

“Something wicked this way comes,” he replied.

“I guarantee you, there’s nothing wicked in what we do,” Marigold explained. “Just those evil popes trying to convince the masses not to pray to their trees and make up silly stories about otherworldly beings. Like they had the corner market on it or something.”

Tom chuckled lowly and scooted closer to her until his knees touched hers. The connection made her whole body vibrate with excitement—and it was just his jean-covered knees. What the heck was going to happen later when there was nothing there?

She held her hands out, palm up. “Put your hands on mine.”

His hands dwarfed hers; they were soft and warm and strong. And like every time his skin met her skin, the strange invisible energy throbbed between their joining, now so much more potent and erotic than the stinging snap prior to breaking the curse.

His fingers curled around her wrists, intensifying the connection. “Is that what I’m supposed to be feeling?”

“No,” she said. “That’s just us. Haven’t you noticed it since last night? Every time we touch—”

“I just thought it was because of all this pent up sexual tension,” he said.

“I’m sure it’s not helping. But this is us. This is our souls, together, joined; no more of those painful electric shocks,” she replied.

He cleared his throat after a long pause. “I… like us.”

Marigold’s face warmed. Her heart picked up, felt light and fluttery. “So far, I do, too.”

Tom’s returning smirk of triumph practically burned her clothes right off, but she resisted him. He looked down at their hands and squeezed. “You were going to show me how to meditate?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” she said, flustered. He was absolutely deadly when he wanted to be.  “Close your eyes.”

“Must I?” he asked.

“It helps.”

“I’d rather lose myself in yours.”

“You’re teasing me.”

He looked like the cat that got the canary. “Perhaps.”

“Please close your eyes?”

She waited until he closed them to follow suit and close hers, but it she could still see his smile on the backs of her eyelids because it was so bright.  Or maybe she just felt his enjoyment through their hands. Whatever it was, she liked it.

Except, she figured if she could feel enjoyment, she’d be able to feel unhappiness… and a whole host of other emotions from him. She hadn’t considered that part of their connection—it certainly helped explain why she’d felt so light headed the night she found him the pub. She’d sensed his drunkenness. It seemed somehow unfair that he wasn’t also experiencing her emotions. Or maybe he was, and just hadn’t voiced it. Or, perhaps, he was just blocked. Which meant this meditation might help him.

“Now, breathe in,” she instructed. “Hold it for a few seconds, then breathe out.”

She heard his exaggerated inhalation, then as he expelled it. Whether he was doing all of this to appease her or not, she didn’t care. It made her giddy.

“Again,” she said. “And as you continue to do it, listen to the quiet.”

He seemed to follow her instructions, but she couldn’t tell because she didn’t open her eyes. All she heard was his breathing—now less dramatic—and the chirp of birds.

“Hear the birds?”

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed.

“Listen to them,” she replied. “Focus on them, then find the silence… but it’s not really silence. It’s white noise, almost. Stillness, a beat like a heart beat.”

His fingers tensed around her wrists, then he let out a shuddering breath as he slipped further into relaxation.

She felt it, too, intensified between them as they both listened. “Thrumming, throbbing…” she murmured. The chilling wind picked up, catching the limbs in the trees and rustling leaves. The trunks whispered their songs again.

Then, all of sudden, her calm was shattered with the hunger of his mouth covering hers. Her eyes shot open in surprise.

She pushed at his chest. “Thomas! I thought you were genuinely…”

“Oh, I am,” he hissed, fingers tangling in her hair and dragging her back to his mouth.

Marigold released a sigh against him, his tongue taking the opportunity to sweep past her lips. She moaned into his mouth, inching closer to him, succumbing to his sneak attack. He pulled her to him until she kneeled on the rock and straddled his lap.

The instant she relaxed into his drugging kisses, and her body settled into the seat of his pelvis, she regretted it. His hard excitement—hard as the stone scraping her bare knees—pressed against her center. A full-body shiver exploded out from her clit, the spot tender and somehow overstimulated though he had not finished what he had started earlier in the morning. The shiver led quickly to a buck against him, her body craving more friction and outrightly disobeying her brain.

No! They didn’t have time for this—

But nothing listened to her brain. Not her heart. Or her lips. Or the hips that rotated against him again, grinding down, in search of more delicious pressure and fulfillment for her poor, underserved sex.

Their teeth clacked together when he fell back on the stone altar and she tipped with him. The action elicited an ‘oof’ from him and an insane-sounding, shrill giggle from her.

“Tom,” she whimpered, bracing herself above him, her hands pressing into his shoulders for balance. “We can’t… we have to… your—”

“Shut up, Marigold.” His hands shot to her hips, as though he knew she was about to swing her leg over and dismount him. Fingers bit into her thighs and dragged up under her shorts. To drive his point home, he lifted his hips and ground against her, holding her still for one agonizing minute until her squirming grew too violent for him to contain with his grasp.

Finally, he released her, neither of them sated, her body dripping and begging for more attention from him, and his erection literally throbbing through the thick denim of his jeans. She thought, for just a brief minute, that they just ought to finish what they started. Ease both their minds—and their bodies—so they could focus on the rest of the day.

But she knew, with some clarity, that once they started, there wasn’t going to be any stopping. At least not for a while. Even if they  _wanted_ to stop, their bodies weren’t going to let them. And it just wasn’t right to completely ignore guests to fuck a lover into oblivion for the rest of the day.

“I’ve waited too long to have this end up as some quick dry hump in the forest.” Her voice sounded strange, heavy with need. She collapsed onto him, her softness molding to the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. Turning, she set her head on his shoulder, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Fuck. He smelled good. Like spring and sunshine and fresh cut pine.

“Doesn’t have to be dry,” he panted, hands gliding up and down her sides, teasing the side of her breasts, then swooping lower and pressing against her ass until she fit perfectly over the ridge of steel clothed by his jeans.

She bit her lip, barely concealing a sharp cry of pleasure in her throat. She could not, however, contain the frisson that rocked her body against him.

“We have to go,” she said, using all her strength—both physical and non—to pull herself up and jump off the table.  Looking at him laid out on the stone altar made a grin stretch her mouth. She caught her swollen lower lip between her teeth.

“What?”

She grinned. “I’m rethinking virgin sacrifices.”

“Yeah, well, if you keep making me wait, I  _will_  be revirginized.” His pout pleased her immensely.

“Puh-lease,” she said, patting his chest. “If anyone is a virgin again, it’s me.”

He sat up on the table. “I was  _trying_  to help you with that.”

Marigold giggled again and shook her head. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

“You know I’m a runner,” he warned.

“Yes, but I don’t think you often try running with an erection like that,” she said, taking off for the path that led back to the house. “I think we’re even!” she yelled back to him. Even in everything—running, and the many, many threats she’d made about making this weekend hell.

The sad thing was, she kind of wanted him to catch her and drag her back to the stone table, caveman style, to ravish her in the sight of her ancestors and the forest.

Guests be damned.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you and enjoy! The next chapter is the, um, biggie. Well, one of the biggies.

Marigold stood at the head of the patio dining table with an empty wooden bowl in one hand and a jug of May wine in the other. “Alright. House rules, everyone. If you’re going to partake in this,” she said, lifting the jug, “then you must place all cell phones and keys inside the bowl. The bowl will be locked away until the morning, when you will be assessed for rightness of mind and given a handy hangover cure, as needed, for your return trip.”

“What if we have to work in the morning?” Asha piped up from her spot further down the table and to the right.

“Are you going to drink?”

She pressed her lips together, eyed the jug of clear liquid filled with fruit, then sighed. “Yes.”

“Then your cell phone and keys go in,” Marigold replied. “Especially  _your_  cell phone, Asha. I don’t want to see any more horrible photos of myself falling all over a drunk Tom.”

They all murmured to themselves. Tom laughed, self-deprecatingly, and dug his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and dropped it inside the bowl. “My keys are upstairs.”

Marigold glanced at him and winked. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere. The rules are mostly for these other yahoos.”

“God, would you please just go off and fuck already?” Olly groaned and rubbed a hand across his slightly sunburned face. He’d spent too much time outside today, but any tenderness from the burn didn’t seem to bother him much. “I’m so over watching this.”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “Who says we’d be any better afterward?”

“And please remember my father’s right there,” Tom warned.

Jim barked out a long laugh at his son’s expense. “If you think my sensibilities will be damaged, you have another thing coming, son. I raised you, I’ve seen and had to listen to worse.”

A chorus of “oooo” erupted around the table, followed by giggly laughter as Olly, Jess and Asha fell over themselves, also at Tom’s expense. For his part, Tom seemed to ignore the others and focused on his father. He wasn’t truly upset, but she heard the tinge of annoyance in Tom’s voice, like any child’s voice after they’ve just been summarily embarrassed by their parent.

Tom frowned and squinted his eyes at his father. He raised a finger, wiggling it censoriously at him. “Maybe the old codger doesn’t need any alcohol, Ree.”

“Hey, now,” Marigold said. “House rule number two is that we honor our ancestors and elders.”

“Thank you, Marigold,” Jim replied with a proud nod of his head. He also placed his cell phone and key ring inside the bowl. “I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.”

She grinned. “If you decide to stay, sleeping quarters have been assigned as follows: Jim will be in the second bedroom. I moved the futon to the office, where Asha will sleep, presumably.”

“Presumably?” Asha asked.

Marigold shrugged her shoulders. “If you should happen to find your way into someone else’s bed, it’s okay, too. That’s what tonight and tomorrow is all about, after all.”

Asha’s dark skin became darker in her blush, and she glanced over at Olly. She hadn’t said anything outright to Marigold over the course of the day, but Marigold sensed their mutual interest in each other. There were a lot of issues holding Asha back, she knew, not least of all a considerable age difference, but it was one of those attractions they weren’t going to be able to ignore if they spent more time together… especially after alcohol contributed to lowering their inhibitions.

“And Olly and Jess will take the couches down here,” Marigold continued quickly, trying to save her best friend’s embarrassment. She did, however, notice Olly’s speculative glance in Asha’s direction before he turned to look back at Marigold. “That is, of course, if you decide to stay.”

The last three passed the bowl between them, depositing car keys and silent cell phones. When the bowl made it back to Marigold, she set the large glass jug on the table. “This is May wine. There’s sweet white wine, champagne and some other fun stuff in it. Sort of like sangria. It packs a deceptive punch, so be careful in the beginning until you learn your tolerance. I suggest you eat with it in the beginning or you’re going to be hailing the Porcelain God in an hour.”

Everyone exchanged looks of concern, but they all burst into laughter a second later. Tom reached for the jug, but she stopped him with a hand over his. “Wait, there’re a few more rules.”

He sat back. “Like?”

“House rule number three: you cannot tell anyone about tonight. It is absolutely, positively important that I have your word that whatever happens here stays here,” she said. “I trust all of you, and I’ve taken away the cell phones so it reduces the temptation of photographic evidence and something getting out, but I can’t stress this enough.”

They nodded in silent agreement, waiting for more direction. She liked that they were all so interested in her and what she was saying, even Tom, who hadn’t smirked, said anything negative, or rolled his eyes once since their little experience in the forest that morning.

“House rule number four: if, at any time, you feel uncomfortable with what we’re doing, you can remove yourself or not participate.” Marigold made sure this connected with each of them. “I mean, we’re only doing a little thing, but I want you all to know that there’s no pressure if you don’t want to do it.”

“What  _are_  we doing?” Asha asked, biting her lip.

Marigold smiled at her friend; Asha had participated in many family celebrations through the years, and certainly had a better idea of what to expect, but she still always approached any rituals with care. Just like Marigold expected all of them to do. The energy in the magic was real and universal, even in those who were not witches, and if approached in a careless way, it could spell big trouble down the line. The last thing she wanted was for these people to hurt themselves in the process of doing something that should bring them peace and happiness.

Marigold pointed her thumb at the small mismatched gardening pots on the low table surrounded by patio couches and chairs. She’d found the pots earlier, buried in the barn with the other gardening supplies. A quick and easy idea formed as she rummaged through clay pot shards, finally locating six unbroken ones and carrying them out to be cleaned for tonight.

They now encircled an iron brazier she’d set up as a makeshift fire pit. She couldn’t very well have a Beltane celebration without a fire, but the proper one would have to wait for later after everyone went to bed. The brazier would do the trick for her little activity. And it was a nice addition to the old Beltane altar decorations she’d grabbed from Violet’s storage for the night.

Honestly, Marigold was proud of herself and the fact she’d been able to pull it all together on such short notice, and with limited time, between Tom constantly interrupting her and helping with the gardening outside. Maybe next year, with more time, she’d plan an actual celebration with other witches and invite them all along to witness a real Beltane.

“We’re planting seeds in the pots,” Marigold finally explained. “Say some words, write down something we want to see grow in our lives throughout the year, then burn it in the fire. I’ll explain it more later, but first we need to eat because I’m starving.”

“Good, so am I,” Jim intoned, looking at the spread of food they’d already placed out between empty plates and cups.

She and Jim had prepared dinner together while Tom worked with the others finishing up outside. It was nice to spend time with Jim without his son’s ridiculous interruptions, especially when they could talk about Violet some more without having to give whole history lessons to the others about their shared past.

“Alright, have at.” Marigold motioned to the food, but then froze. “Oh, wait! Fifth rule: Eat, drink and be merry.”

“You need to get these in needlepoint or something,” Jess piped up, eagerly reaching for the bowl of fresh spring salad.

Marigold giggled. “I think my grandmother did something with it a long time ago. It’s somewhere around here. Let me go put the bowl of keys and phones away.”

She retreated into the house and stuck the bowl in a drawer in the bottom of a cabinet beneath the stairs. It wasn’t exactly locked away, but no one was going to go looking for it there. Especially since they were all too concerned with filling their plates and guzzling the alcohol while she hid the bowl.

No doubt they were starving after a long day of manual labor. Sure, none of them were lazy people, but they all had cushy, fairly nonphysical jobs. Today had to be a shock to their system—though she had to admit they’d all risen to the challenge and saved her a  _ton_  of work. As much as she liked her gardening, cleaning out dead plants, pulling weeds and preparing soil was not a fun task.

When she returned to the patio, her glass was full and her plate filled. Her old and new friends sat around laughing and chatting, passing dishes back and forth like they’d known each other for years. Not for the first time, she felt full of… something. Of love? Of contentment? It had been a very long time, indeed, since she’d experienced something so powerful. It made her smile and happy tears prick at her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Marigold startled and turned to look at Tom, who had noticed her frozen in place just outside the door. She cleared her throat and quickly brushed a tear from her eye before it had a chance to fall. “I’m just really, really happy. Today has been a good day.”

Almost too good to be true.

She slid into the seat beside Tom, his arm wrapping around her shoulders to pull her against his side. He brushed his lips across her temple as she relaxed into his arms and returned the hug. “It  _has_ been wonderful. I love London, but I think I’m falling in love with the quiet of the countryside.”

Marigold giggled, her face heating at his words. He probably meant that he liked being “Just Tom” up here, with little bother of being seen or recognized. But she couldn’t help but feel like he maybe meant more about falling in love. At least, she realized, she  _hoped_  he meant more. Because it was becoming increasingly easy to imagine a life with him—no, one that  _required_  him in it.

“So are you ever going to tell us what happened that changed your minds about each other?” Olly asked, stuffing a cube of cheese and a grape in his mouth. “I mean, I knew from the moment you walked out in that apron at his house that you two were goners for each other. But Tom put up one hell of a fight.”

Tom shot a glare at his friend, but didn’t say anything as he focused on eating. Marigold looked between them, and noticed the curiosity from the others as well. She swallowed a gulp of wine and leaned back in her seat. “Sometimes mysteries are better left mysteries, Oliver.”

“Oh, she used your full name,” Jess said. “She means business.”

Jim, who sat across from her, wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked between them both. Marigold hadn’t told Jim anything about the curse—frankly, she didn’t want him to know about it, in case he somehow felt responsible for causing the initial rift between them. Tom’s own guilt after she showed him Violet’s journals was enough to handle. And to explain the curse would also require explaining how Jim asked for her grandmother’s and Violet’s help in saving Tom as a little boy. She wasn’t sure Jim or Tom wanted others to know about it. If they did, they’d say something.

“It sounds like it’s a good story, though,” Olly said.

“Maybe you’ll find out someday, Olly,” Tom replied. Clearly, Tom didn’t want it explained.

Their conversation devolved into frivolous topics, while they enjoyed the tasty food and spring air in good company. Eventually, much more inebriated than when they started the feast, they began clearing the table and washing up. Tom instructed both Jim and Marigold to relax while he and the others did it all; Marigold didn’t dare complain. He was definitely earning brownie points above and beyond the debt left by his poor behavior pre-curse breaking.

But their absence left her staring at Jim, who, now alone with her, looked at her carefully before speaking. She knew exactly where this conversation was headed before it even began. A witch didn’t need foresight to see the questions forming on his lips.

Jim coughed into his hand. “What Olly said got me thinking—did Rose and Violet helping Tom—”

Marigold shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She really didn’t want to tell him, but she also wasn’t one to deny him if he truly wanted to know. “It’s not pleasant, Jim. I think maybe it really is better to let it be. Tom and I know, and we’ve worked through it…”

“Does it have something to do with Rose and Violet healing him?” he repeated, in a tone she could not ignore. There was no escaping him now.

“You really do believe in magic?”

Jim sighed and thumbed the condensation on his wine glass. “Marigold, I’ve been around for a while. I’ve seen a lot of seemingly inexplicable things in my time though I can usually find a simple explanation. But there’s no common explanation for the things I’ve seen your people do. Eventually you must realize that even though you hear hoof beats and think horses, there’s still a chance it could be zebras.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Occam’s razor,” he replied. “Medical students are taught to test for the simplest diagnosis for a malady first. If a child has a runny nose, the simplest and most rational answer is the child has an upper respiratory infection, not a rare genetic disorder. The aphorism coined by Dr. Theodore Woodward in the 40s is ‘when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras’.”

Marigold pressed her lips together and nodded her head. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, eh?”

Jim laughed. “Yes, exactly. Sometimes, though, the duck is actually a platypus. Rare and exotic and so much more than we can ever make sense of. That is what magic is, and I do believe it’s possible that it exists. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. My fellow doctors would say that the medicinal therapy is what saved Tom, that he finally started to respond to it. But I know what I saw, I know where he was at clinically. Tom was not going to survive, but he did, and he made a radical recovery too quickly to be easily explained away by horses or ducks.”

Marigold leaned her arms on the table and reached for her glass of wine, twirling it by the stem with two fingers. She watched the swirling ripples for a second before she looked back at him. “Violet cursed Tom.”

“She… did,” Jim said cautiously, though didn’t seem very surprised by it. “How?”

“Did she ever say anything to you about her connection with my grandmother? Why they were so powerful together?” she asked.

He nodded. “Something about the twin connection.”

“Yes, but did she say it wasn’t just genetics, that it was also soul deep?” she asked. “Two halves of a whole?”

“I didn’t pay much attention to it. She hadn’t really made me a believer of her powers at the time. Or the possibility of magic in general.”

“Well, they—Rose and Violet—were twin flames. Some twins never find each other, but those that do are bound for life. If one of the pair dies or leaves the other, it’s a grief beyond compare,” she said. “Literally, a part of you has been ripped away and you never feel whole, no matter how much you try to recover.”

Jim sighed heavily. “And that’s what happened when Rose died, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I never knew,” he said. “Violet never explained what happened… after. She hardly ever communicated with me except to stop by on her yearly Midsummer’s visits with the cake. I thought it was to check on Tom.”  

Marigold sighed herself and shook her head. “Tom and I are twin flames.”

Jim’s astute blue eyes shot to hers in confusion, but then his expression softened into one of wonder.

“It’s why Rose fought so hard to keep Tom alive. They saw it when we first met as children,” she said.

Jim laughed, his eyes wistful and, if she wasn’t mistaken, misty. He didn’t strike her as an emotional man, but there were tears brimming. “I always wondered if there wasn’t… something… I can’t accurately describe the way you both acted around each other. It was odd, to say the least. You could barely walk and you definitely weren’t doing much more than babbling, but it was like he understood you on another level. Oh! And he was very protective of you. We had this big Irish setter at the time. Rusty was the dog’s name. Loved that dog to death, but there was two-year-old Tom standing up and pushing Rusty away because you started crying when Rusty tried licking you. Literally stood between you and the big bad wolf. It was very strange, indeed.”

Was it possible for a heart to explode? Because her heart was about to explode. She wished she could remember those moments herself. Marigold cleared her throat of the emotional knot making it difficult to breathe.

“But then you reappeared out of thin air, and I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, why it was so different between you two. I thought maybe he really had let all the fame go to his head.” Jim sat back in his seat and looked at her pensively for a few minutes. A soundtrack of laughter and ceramic dishes clunking together in the kitchen floated through the air. Finally, Jim drew in a steadying breath. “What was the curse?”

“It was designed to keep us apart. The idea is that twin souls  _want_ to find the other half, like magnets. They don’t always locate the other, but once two twins  _do_  find each other, there’s no going back. They constantly gravitate to each other. The curse stopped the gravitation,” she explained. “She didn’t want him to have me.”

Jim nodded in understanding, but the pain on his features was unmistakable. “Well, it certainly explains why he’s never had a serious relationship. He was meant to be with you, but couldn’t find you.”

Marigold laughed. “Hey, that’s not  _all_  the curse. A lot of that is due to external factors. His ego. His stupidly intelligent brain making it difficult for him to believe in the unbelievable. And then there’s the things he experienced growing up, in the way of relationships. Like your divorce and such. Heck, I know my parents’ divorce messed with my head, too. But the curse certainly didn’t help matters any.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But if there’s the curse, how—”

“She baked it in the cake,” Marigold said. “She had to deliver it every year to keep the spell in full power, or it would decay. The power of the spell built up over time, but then when Tom moved on to university and no longer ate the cake, it began dissipating. That’s why there were more and more coincidences leading us together. And it all came to a head when his estate agency messed up the booking at his house. I didn’t know about the curse until a few days ago, and we only were able to break it officially last night.”

One playful gray eyebrow rose in much the same fashion Tom’s always did. She could see now where Tom’s roguishness came from. Marigold couldn’t contain her laughter, grabbing at her stomach as she doubled over at Jim’s proud smile.

When she finally caught her breath, she sobered and looked back at Jim. “I need you to know that it isn’t your fault, keeping us apart. It was entirely Violet’s fault and her inability to deal with the price of their magic. It’s what they did. They were healers. They knew what they were doing when they agreed to heal Tom and Violet was out of line for retaliating that way. Not only did she fuck with Tom’s happiness, but she fucked with mine. I love her. I will always love her. But I’m not happy she did it.”

“I’m simply glad that you two were able to find each other again,” Jim replied, his voice soft. “I want what every parent wants for their child, Marigold. I want Tom to be happy, healthy and successful. Tom has his success and health, but I know he hasn’t been happy. In fact, it’s been a  _long_ time since I’ve seen him genuinely smile and laugh as much as he has today. That’s because he has you in his life now.”

Marigold grinned and ducked her head, feeling somehow bashful at Jim’s praise. It was so nice to be accepted, in general, but the fact this was her lover’s father giving her a seal of approval? That meant a lot. She hoped the rest of Tom’s family were just as welcoming. And that they could actually make their relationship work; she decided not to tell Jim there was still a chance they wouldn’t end up together in the long run. At least not in the romantic sense.

“And what are you two talking about?” Tom boomed from the doorway, waltzing outside with a tray of sweets, a chocolate chip cookie already halfway to his mouth. Marigold was surprised there were any left at the rate he’d been eating them throughout the day.

Marigold looked at him as he plopped back into the seat beside her. “We were talking about you.”

“None of it’s true,” Tom automatically replied as the others filed back out and grabbed their drinks from the table. They moseyed over to the chairs and couches with the planting pots. Jim got up from his seat and followed suit.

She nudged his shoulder with hers and gave him a light kiss on his lips, tasting sugar and chocolate. “I want what he said to be true.”

Tom scowled. “What did he say?”

“That you were utterly adorable as a two-year-old,” she replied.

“That’s it?”

Marigold shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I’ll tell you later. I’m eager to get this show on the road so we can put the kids to bed.”

His pupils dilated instantly and his nostrils flared. “Can you drug their wine?”

“The wine’s already drugged,” she said. “So don’t drink too much more.”

“What did you put in it?”

“Nothing bad,” she said. “All natural.”

“Marijuana is natural, too,” he remarked.

“This is legal,” she said. “Well, sorta. Don’t question the witch. Everyone will be fine.”

Tom laughed and shook his head, wrapping his arms around her again and kissing her properly. He still tasted like chocolate. She debated letting them all fend for themselves and finally sneaking away with Tom, but she knew it would be worth the wait. He’d see that. And so would she.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, since I have said it here already:
> 
> There will be a sequel after I finish Home, with a new couple. It will be a Benedict Cumberbatch/OFC story entitled Safe Upon the Shore. With magic and fun. I actually have a whole series planned, called Seasons of Magic. The Ben story will be a Summer story. The third story will be Chris Evans/OFC story for Fall. The fourth and final (Winter) has not been decided yet. I hope that if you've enjoyed Home, you'll stick around for more.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look! It’s Monday evening, like I promised! Also, writing sex from a male perspective is hard–no pun intended. Or maybe it is. ENJOY!

By the time the clock struck midnight, Tom was sure if someone looked up the definition for priapism in the dictionary, his photo would be permanently attached. Like… all the artistic renderings of Priapus with his humungous, engorged dick would be removed, and there’d be a photo of Tom Hiddleston, actor, grimacing in pain, into the camera.

Maybe he wasn’t really suffering priapism. He was suffering Marigold. Or, more appropriately, Marigold-induced blue balls. He’d been able to calm himself down repeatedly throughout the day—absolutely no help from her, either—but all that calming left him with a horrible ache low in his belly and heavy-as-fuck bollocks that needed release before they burst. He needed it  _so_  bad, he was almost ready to abandon his self-imposed rule not to have an orgasm without her. But he figured he’d waited all day, he could wait a little longer to get her alone and do it right. When she told him to wait in the cottage for another hour while she did God knew what out at her bonfire, he agreed, under extreme duress.

He’d even convinced himself not to touch himself.

Much.

He’d simply had to readjust here and there. Even that, though, had been impossible, rocketing signals of pain and pleasure through his body and tingling at the base of his spine.  _Fuck._  She was going to kill him. Literally kill him.

Maybe he deserved it.

He probably deserved it.

Okay, he  _did_  deserve it.

Except, when he initially agreed to Marigold’s terms Friday evening when he’d come to ask for her forgiveness, he never expected that his punishment would come in this form. She likely hadn’t expected it, either. However, if he had learned one thing about her over the last few days it was that she was resourceful—not due to her magic or some other otherworldly force—but because she was wickedly intelligent. With that intelligence came a keen understanding of how to use a situation to her advantage.

Of course, he couldn’t quite fault her for today, and the times she’d pushed him away.  _He_ had started all that when he’d edged her, quite evilly, in bed this morning. That was all him. But she knew, God  _did_  she know, exactly how much he’d worked himself up and had played off his discomfort like an expert. Like she could read his mind. She couldn’t, at least he didn’t think that was possible, but it seemed like it. And she found more and more ways to make his day miserable.

His fault entirely, though. He’d given her the ammunition. She’d already had the gun.

After waiting exactly forty-three minutes—he had watched like a hawk as the minute hand on the wall clock in the kitchen ticked away the time—Tom could wait no more. His legs were already alternating a bouncing rhythm on the wooden floor beneath him and the tingling in his groin had reached a fever pitch. He wasn’t hard, not yet, but that was only through sheer force of will and not thinking about how Marigold had been dressed when she’d slipped out the door with a picnic hamper on one elbow and a stack of thick blankets balancing on the other.

Tom stood from his seat in the kitchen and reached for his coat on the back of the chair, pulling it on and buttoning it up his front. Maybe it was futile to do the buttoning, considering that he, very shortly, planned to take it and some other clothes off, but it was still cold at night this time of year. In fact, he’d inquired about Marigold’s plan to do this outdoors on a cold night, but her eyes had merely twinkled as she cracked a smile, patting his chest, as though he should have known better than to question her. Maybe he  _should_  have known better, but he was just looking out for them both. There was a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs, and there were ways to keep each other quiet if she didn’t want to be overheard.

And that wasn’t even taking into consideration that the others had literally passed out in their respective make-shift beds. No one was going to wake up after all the drinking they’d done.

He really needed to be keeping a list of herbs she used so he could start using them for himself—an herb like that when he was sleepless from jet lag would make his life a lot easier.

Tom shoved his hand into his jeans pocket, verifying that the handful of condoms he’d put there earlier were still there. Of course, he didn’t expect to use them all, but the extras were important if the initial one tore while trying to open the packet or while it was going on. He’d never had it happen before, but there was a first time for everything… and knowing the trajectory of his relationship with Marigold, he wouldn’t put it past the Universe to do it to him, either. Just to spite him for some slight he’d caused in the past.

As soon as he stepped out the back door into the garden he saw the orangey yellow glow seeping through the thick line of shrubs and trees and followed it like a beacon. He felt fairly confident in his strides, remembering the terrain leading from the cottage to her stone circle happened to be mostly flat and free of debris. He knew that much after mapping his way through the wilds earlier in the day when found her sitting on a boulder, her face turned up to dappled sun with a serene smile on her lips. Something had told him to turn around and let her continue whatever moment she was having, but a twig had snapped beneath his boot and it was too late.

Not that he was upset with how their conversation turned out after that. He’d learned a lot, and, much to his surprise, felt what she was trying to explain. In the silence, listening to the beat of his heart and aligning his breathing to the strange pulsing energy around him had been… easy? Breathtaking, even. Never had he been so awed by something he didn’t understand—or ever expected to sense in the first place.

It had become real to him. Physical. Palpable. He really felt it now, around him, thrumming deep in his soul, amplified whenever he was with her. Whenever he touched her. Whenever she smiled at him.

When he drew nearer to the light, past the first layer of trees, he heard soft music playing, heavy in percussion and reed pipes. It died out and turned to another song, this one slower, sensual. The visual of naked writhing bodies in an orgy sprang to his mind. He’d heard this in a movie once, he was sure. This was the sort of soundtrack musical directors always stuck in erotic moments on screen, especially if it was a historical piece depicting the wild, the base, the non-gentrified. It was primal, driving, scorching. Foreign and exciting. Exactly what he’d expect to hear at a witch’s sabbat. If those were really a thing.

For all he knew, they were.

For all he knew, he was about to step into one.

He cleared the trees into the meadow, and noticed, first, that it was about five degrees warmer standing just there, far outside the stone circle. Which was weird. It had to be warmer still inside the circle, nearer the fire. Heat didn’t work like this. It should have been just as cold right where he stood.

But it wasn’t.

A small black form caught his attention as it swayed around the other side of the bonfire, coming into sight and stopping its movements. She held a handful of the flowing white skirt against her thigh, keeping it from dragging on the ground, but let it drop, the hem swishing back around her bare feet. The color in her cheeks, he noted even from a distance, was high and pink, and the brightness of her cerulean eyes seemed to pierce through the night and straight to his heart.

He glanced lower, taking in her body in the white gown, long bell-sleeved, but form fitting, and practically translucent. Back inside, after she’d changed into the dress, he’d asked where she thought she was going dressed like that. She merely laughed at him and kissed his lips. When she turned the right way in the lamplight, he’d made out the outline of her limbs, of the slightly rounded natural protrusion of her belly, of the exact shade of her rosy nipples.

Knowing she’d worn nothing else but the gown had driven him crazy. This, right now, was worse, with those perfect nipples hard and straining against the soft fabric. His mouth watered at the thought of worshipping them the same way he wanted to worship the rest of her.

He’d spend all night on his knees at her altar if she asked it of him. Fuck, at this moment, he’d promise to spend the rest of his life there if she took away his pain.

Her soft laughter drifted toward him and he snapped his attention back to her face, finding her mirthful smile. She lifted a hand and crooked her finger, silently beckoning him to her. He couldn’t resist the pull, nor did he want to waste any more time staring, so he walked through the clearing, feeling the temperature rise around him as he grew nearer to the boulders and stepped past them.

The heat of the blaze on his face was strong and potent, and the ambient air in the little circle was warm enough to remove the coat on his shoulders. It was strange, that, but he didn’t have enough brain power to figure out what it meant. Not now. Not with her floating toward him on silent feet, closing the remaining distance between them.

Marigold stopped in front of him, close enough that he could also feel her body heat, but not enough to be touching. She looked up at him, adjusting the crown of colorful flowers adorning her head so they didn’t fall off with the movement. Tom swallowed down a parched throat, dropping his gaze to her face, outlining the slope of her button nose, the point of her chin, the bow of her lips as he shrugged off his coat and threw it on a boulder behind him without taking his eyes off her. He didn’t know where he wanted to lay his lips first.

“You look like a fairy,” he said softly, lifting a hand, touching the flower crown with his fingers. The petals of the purple, pink and red flowers woven throughout were soft and supple. Real. “Like I imagine Titania might look at her most beautiful.”

She grinned. “Such a sweet talker.”

Tom laughed.

“You lasted longer than I thought you would,” she whispered, drifting infinitesimally closer to him, until her chest brushed his. Even through the layer of her dress and his sweater, he could feel the diamond points of her breasts skimming his torso.

He pursed his lips, setting his hands on the curve of her waist, just above the flare of her hips, steadying her. If she rubbed for any length of time against him, even clothed, he knew he’d come like some horny, untrained teenager. He refused to that happen.

“Was it a test?” he asked, his voice gravelly with lust.

She shook her head. “No, I really did need to do some things alone. But I didn’t expect you to actually listen to me.”

“I’d do anything you asked of me.” And it was the truth, by God. Never had he felt like this, like a woman could lay him low and command him and he would do her bidding without protest.

He’d never trusted another like he trusted her.

Marigold stood on her toes, twining her arms around his neck as she lifted. The difference in their height and his not bending to meet her meant her lips only reached his jaw. “ _Any_ thing?”

“I would probably kill for you,” he said. Seriously. Maybe too seriously. He couldn’t believe the words actually came out of his mouth. Where had they come from? He wasn’t a violent person. But, even as he thought it through, he couldn’t deny the truth in them. If someone were threatening her, if someone were trying to hurt her, he wouldn’t hesitate to do something about it.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to take his pronouncement too badly. She kissed him again, this time his throat. Her fingers swept lower, stopping at the hem of his sweater, where they curled beneath the cashmere blend and grazed the bare skin of his belly. “It’s a good thing I’m not one of those vengeful fairies, then.”

Marigold stepped back, but left her fingers on his belly, trailing down through the fine hair leading into his boxers and jeans. She hooked her fingers through a belt loop and pulled, forcing him to walk forward, her meaning clear.

“When I was younger,” she began, meeting his eyes, guiding him further around the fire in a clockwise movement, “we would play a game.”

“A game?” he asked, following her, hanging on every last word.

“Yes, a game,” she replied. “It’s meant to depict the symbolic union of the May Queen and the God of the Forest, to increase the fertility of the land with the spring. In old England on May Eve, maidens would take to the forest to collect flowers and green branches to decorate their homes, and the men would follow them on a hunt… for a willing woman.”

Tom paused with her when she stopped near the large stone altar, where she’d set up various decorations she’d previously had on the patio. White and red candles of varying heights burned in the night, flames flickering in the slight breeze. Between the altar and the fire, on the mossy ground, lay the thick blankets she’d carried out, topped with pillows.  _Lots_  of pillows. He had no idea when she’d been able to bring them out here. He had, after all, kept his eye on her most of the day.

“Of course, it became ritualized over time, and watered down so that everyone could partake in the tradition should they wish. Even Puritans,” she continued. “When I was a child, the chase consisted of the man and woman, playfully weaving in and out of the others at the party, coming together and parting in a mock courtship, the maiden never fully giving in to that year’s chosen God of the Forest until they had circled the fire three times.”

They elapsed once, reaching the point where they initially met, but she didn’t stop this time. She continued, dropping her hand from his jeans and turning away. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes beckoned him to continue following.

“Then the others not participating in the chase would drum and chant, starting slow,” she said, floating away from him. He trailed after her, understanding what she wanted, and unwilling to let her get too far away from him. Even if she weren’t explaining her ritual, he wouldn’t have let her go. He couldn’t. Not now.

She ducked around a large boulder, cutting him off. He pursed his lips and stared, the ancient stone between them, preventing him from reaching out to her. Making a quick calculation, he danced to the left, trying to fake her out. He lunged for her on the other side, but she was too quick and jumped away, his fingers just brushing the billowing skirt of her gown in the breeze of her movement.

“And the drumming would build and build,” she huffed, swiping the mobile that had been playing the music from her altar. “Becoming more and more driving, insistent, suggestive…”

Tom swallowed. He wanted to taste her. To lick her and bite her, to love her, her skin, her lips, her sex. But she was making it devilishly hard to pin her down.

She zigged and zagged through the stones again, but he wasn’t running. He was stalking, slowly, coolly, knowing he’d reach her eventually. He simply had to tire her out. Or, at least, wait out her little demonstration of three trips ‘round the fire.

“When they rounded the fire the third time,” she said and stopped, abruptly turning in her spot. “The drumming and chanting would cease.” The music silenced, and she tossed the mobile into the open picnic hamper beside her.

He stood in front of her, peering down at her curiously. “And then what?”

Marigold turned her face up to him, her cheeks once more high with color from her exertion, shining and beautiful. She’d never been more attractive than at that moment. “Then, they would cry out, ‘Fire and passion, love and life, brought together as one!’”

Tom wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, winding his fingers in her silky silvery blonde hair. When he had sufficient purchase, he tugged until he had her where he wanted her. If he didn’t kiss her soon, he was going to explode.

“And then what?” he growled, teasing her, lowering his mouth to hers, hovering but never touching. He could feel the soft puffs of her breath against his face, the sensation shooting straight down to his cock. A shiver rocked through him, and he closed his eyes briefly.

“Then,” she said, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat, swallowed again. “Then the May Queen proxy would say to her King, ‘I am the earth, the womb of all creation. Within me, new life grows each year. Water is my blood, air my breath, and fire is my spirit. I give you honor, and shall create new life with you.’”

He nodded, shifting closer yet, setting his feet on either side of hers, boxing her in more securely so she couldn’t think about escape. “And what shall I, your king, say?”

The pink on her skin deepened to red. She blinked. “Then, you would say, ‘I am the rutting stag, the seed, the energy of life—’”

He inched down, leaving not more than a hair’s breadth between their lips, somehow understanding exactly how this ritual was meant to proceed. He felt it, deep down, in a way he couldn’t explain. Like he’d done this before, perhaps in a past life. Been here, in this exact spot. Knew everything about everything. Understood that magic was real and he was experiencing it in this moment.

“I am the rutting stag, the seed, the energy of life,” he murmured. Forming the words on his lips resulted in slight kisses, pulling a groan of frustration from her.

She blew out a breath. He dropped his eyes to her chest, noting the way her heart beat so quickly he could see her pulse. Feel it throbbing on his palm pressed against her neck. She swallowed another breath. “‘I am the mighty oak that grows in the forest.’”

Tom met her gaze again. “I am the mighty oak that grows in the forest.”

“Finally.” Marigold closed what little space remained between them—naught more than a millimeter—and wrapped her arms around his waist, her fingers digging into his back to hold him steady against her. “‘I give you honor, and shall create new life with you.’”

“I give you  _my_  honor,” he repeated, pressing his lips to hers for a brief second before pulling back to finish, “and shall create new life with you.”

Her hands massaged up his bare back and over his shoulders, drawing the sweater with her hands. Marigold licked her lips again. “Now, no more teasing. Kiss me like you mean it.”

And he did, groaning in her mouth, tasting wine on her tongue. Fuck, it felt like he’d been marching through a desert with nothing to drink and now, before him, stood an oasis full of shady trees and sparkling water.

A giggle from her turned into a moan as her hands quested, dropping down his chest to his jeans, where they groped along the ridge of his erection. Her small hands dug around in his pocket until he paused to find out what she was doing, her physical attention too far away from where he yearned for the pressure on his cock. She’d extracted a foil condom packet, and was already lifting it to her teeth to tear it open.

He hadn’t even removed any clothing.

“I don’t know where you expect to put that,” he said. “My jeans aren’t even off. I mean, I know you said it’s been a few years, but there is an order—”

She laughed and backed away from him, pulling out of his grasp. “Then you had better do something with them. Quickly.”

He needed no other inducement, kicking his shoes to the side, throwing his sweater off, and tugging down his jeans and boxers. She reached behind herself and drew apart the strings he’d tied into a bow for her earlier, the fabric of her dress instantly loosening around her body. For effect, she shimmied slightly, dropping one shoulder, then the other, until the dress fell all way down the column of her body. It pooled into a frothy white puddle at her feet until she kicked it away.

He’d seen and felt most of her body in the past twenty-four hours, but he hadn’t expected the sudden, inexplicable sensation of his mouth watering as though he were looking at a feast after a famine. Maybe this  _was_  a feast after a famine, though. He’d never been with a woman who was so unabashedly secure in her own body, not that she had anything to hide. She was flawless, from her round hips to her teardrop breasts. Even the tiny tattoo on her hipbone, in the shape of a marigold, was perfection. It was his, alone—and no one else’s.

A smirk tugged at his lips. When had he become such a caveman?

Marigold dropped to her knees and reached for him, circling her fingers around his girth and tugging lightly until he took a step forward, close enough that they were both comfortable. He gritted his teeth as soon as felt the puffs of hot breath on his abdomen, dipping lower to the base of his shaft, finally stopping long enough for her tongue to begin licking a torturous path toward his tip.

Honestly, he was impressed with himself for not grabbing her right then and fucking her mouth, but it was only a small victory. His bollocks were already tightening, the tingle in the base of his spine pressing dangerously close to release. And when her hot little mouth closed around him, he let out a string of curses into the night, struggling to maintain control of himself. He refused to come without her. He’d promised her this morning—together.

Tom dropped a hand to her chin, pushing up until he popped from her mouth and her eyes met his. It was, singlehandedly, the most goddamn erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life. “I can’t last, Marigold.”

She gave him a firm pump with her hands and then reached for the condom, which she’d dropped beside her. When she’d finished her task, she sat back on her haunches and looked up at him imploringly. She bit her lip, in a fetching display of coquettishness, dropping a hand down her chest, tweaking a nipple, before traveling lower. Her fingers splayed out across her abdomen, then dipped between her legs, rubbing the spot where he wanted to be between her parted legs. A small gasp, a squeak, swam toward him through the night. If filled every sense and translated to his dick, as though she were still holding him, pumping, as he grew harder yet.

He wasn’t aware, until that moment, that he could be so hard—that so much fiery blood could be pounding through him—and still be standing. She was going to kill him.

He bent down, capturing her mouth with his, exerting just enough force that she shifted onto her arse before reclining back on the nest of pillows. Fairy or witch or goddess, whatever she was, she was enchanting him. He thanked whoever was listening for creating this beautiful woman laying before him, her legs spreading slowly, inviting him to join her.

“I hope you know how to use that thing,” she murmured against his mouth, pulling him down to her, grazing her hands down the plane of his back.

Tom smirked. “Give me a minute and I’ll show you.”

She giggled into his mouth, vibrating his lips and tongue, connecting deep into every fiber of his body.

He laid her out beneath him, dragging his tongue down her throat until he reached the hollow between her clavicles. She’d seemed to like that particular spot this morning, if he recalled correctly. Her immediate mewling response and her nails digging into the muscle on his shoulders was enough confirmation that he was not in error.

There was still so much of her body to learn. To explore. Map. He needed more time, more patience. But he knew he wasn’t going to find any; he had to end the torment their day had wrought. Discovering what other dangerous places made her knees buckle would have to wait for later. When he had a clearer head, and could appreciate all those secret spots more thoroughly.

She whimpered when he dipped lower still, sucking one gorgeously formed nipple between his teeth. “Don’t tease me, please! We’ve teased enough.”

He laughed, long and low, dipping his fingers into her slick folds and spreading her lips. She dripped with her arousal. The way she bucked her hips at the intrusion of his seeking fingers confirmed her similar level of arousal, both teetering precariously on the precipice of euphoria. It wouldn’t take much.

Tom grasped his cock, aligning himself with her, drawing the head through her folds, circling around her clit.

“Tom!” she cried, arching her back and pressing her hips into the ground to anchor herself in what he expected to be a bright charge of pleasure. He felt a similar jolt, her body scorching hot and supremely inviting. “Are you trying to drive me insane?”

He laughed again, swooping down to kiss her, flexing his hips so that he bobbed against her sensitive, velvety flesh. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You’re evil,” she said on a shudder.

“You’re fortunate, though,” he hummed into her ear, “for I am a merciful God of the Forest.”

Her legs lifted and twined around his waist, raising her hips, securing herself so that his head pressed past her entrance. She tossed her head back into a pillow when he stilled, refusing to let her move that quickly. He wasn’t about to let it all end that quickly. And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he was about to be a two-pump chump if he let her do what she wanted. The pressure of his release was already traveling halfway up his cock and he hadn’t even seated himself in her welcoming body.

“D-don’t,” she stuttered, her eyelids fluttering closed. She gasped when he shifted, just a fraction. “Don’t let all your power go to your head.”

Tom obliged her, settling into a more favorable position, pushing forward. He drove home in one long, smooth thrust, filling her, stretching her to the limit. They each, in turn, drew in a sharp breath at the ultimate connection of their bodies and held it, then released matching howls of bliss into the still, silent night like some wild beasts. She was almost too tight, too hot. Fuck, he needed to move, but he didn’t want to rush.

He swore he felt the nerves in his body firing and exploding in tiny supernovas. Blinding sensory overload overtook him, the urge to move in her spurred on by the clench of her muscles around him. Despite all his wishes to hold back, to really enjoy this, he couldn’t. He felt powered by something else—sure, the lust, the need for completion and sexual satisfaction were all there like he’d experienced a million times before. But this new sensation was… strange? Like something from within him reached out for Marigold, grasping at thin air because he wasn’t close enough to connect with her. Nothing was ever going to be close enough, not by a long shot, but this was good. For now. So he rained kisses upon her face, swallowed her little mewls of ecstasy, and allowed himself to get lost in the feeling, searching for something—anything—that would bring him peace.

She cried out and rotated her hips, clawing at his back, then his arse, pulling him closer, millimeters deeper. The thought, and God it was the only thought to pass his mind, that she was in the same boat as he made him smile against her sweetly salty skin. It was amazing to be so wanted, so insatiable that she refused to allow him to move away, do other things to her, that she wanted nothing more than to be close to him, to be with him, to be full _of_  him.

“I’m going to… fuck… come, Tom,” she whimpered, her palms slipping up his sweaty back and curling in his hair, holding him to her body.

Tom lifted his head from where he’d nipped at the skin on her shoulder, and met her eyes just as they rolled back and her long white neck arched in pleasure. He reached down to her left thigh, shifting her leg and hooking it over his arm, opening her wider, changing the angle just slightly, driving into her as fast as he dared, and rotating his hips against her. She yelled an oath he didn’t understand, and stilled for a split second. The eye of the storm, the second of sound percussion before an explosion. Then a rush of air, and she crushed down around him, bucking beneath him, sucking new air into her lungs to survive.

And it was over for him, too. Or maybe it was just beginning? He didn’t know. All he knew was that watching and feeling her lose it beneath him was more sexually appealing than anything he’d ever witnessed. Everything in his vision went white and blurry for a minute—a first for him—and the deepest, most guttural growl erupted from his chest as he came, long and hard, until he could no longer make any effort to hold some of his weight away from her.

Mutual tiny spasms and twitches seemed to be milking every last drop of come from him, their breathing labored and intense, even more than a minute later. He collapsed, unknowing of time and space, and content in that fact. Why? Because he knew, somehow cosmically, he was exactly where he needed to be, with Marigold, feeling more satisfied and more whole than he had ever felt in his entire life.

Tom groaned again, attempting to move to the side, but her legs circled like a vice around his hips, locking behind his arse—her thighs were amazing, strong. Her arms refused to relinquish their hold around his neck. “Don’t,” she cried. “Don’t move yet. Please.”

His heart grew ten times hearing her quiet pleas not to leave.

“I want you inside of me forever,” she said, her lips moving against the shell of his ear, her voice breathy with wonder.

He laughed and didn’t let go of her, but found enough strength in his limp body to roll onto his back and lay her on top of him. She stretched like a cat, wiggling her bottom, already sending signals to his brain, then back to his cock, that it was still early.

If this wasn’t magic, then he didn’t know what was.

Finally, she lifted and slid away from him.

“Where are you going?” he asked, pressing his hand against her arse in an attempt to hold her still.

She stood—her legs visibly shook like a newborn fawn while she steadied herself—and walked over to the picnic hamper. From inside, she drew out a plastic bag and came back to his side. “We’re not going to litter out here, Thomas.”

Marigold shook her arse in his face, bending down to retrieve the empty condom pouch. In the movement, he caught a glimpse of her glistening, perfectly pink, just fucked pussy, and it was all he needed to grow hard again. This time, though, he planned to go slow.

She dropped onto the blankets beside him, sitting facing him with her legs stretched out. He dropped his arm over her legs, digging his fingers into her flesh so she understood not leave again. Marigold giggled and reached for the spent condom, still clinging to him, and made quick work of closing it away in the bag of rubbish.

“You think of everything,” he said. “Did you bring a wash cloth with you, too?”

Marigold nodded. “Well, wet naps, really. But it works.”

He grinned.

“My motto is ‘always be prepared if you’re fucking in the forest’,” she said. “I learned it in Girl Scouts.”

“I’m sure you did,” Tom said, sitting up and pulling her back onto his lap.  “What else did you learn in Girl Scouts?”

Marigold’s eyes twinkled again. She kissed him, long and slow. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Oh, he would. He wanted to learn about everything this wicked woman knew. It was the pacing himself that was the problem.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very much for your kind encouragement after the last chapter. I adore you all! Enjoy!

Marigold shivered as her lover’s fingers lightly mapped the valleys and hills of her body, stopping briefly at the black marigold outline dancing just above her hipbone. She mewled, the sound somewhere between a giggle from the tickling sensation of his warm breath fanning out over her bare skin and a moan induced from friction between the pads of his fingers and her body.

Tom turned to look up at her, repositioning his head against her belly, where he lay with his ear pressed to her like a pillow. “What’s the story behind this?” he asked softly, tracing the image, marveling at their precise and crisp lines permanently etched into her skin.

“It’s a marigold,” she said.

“I know what a marigold looks like,” he replied. “And that meaning’s obvious. I mean, why did you get it?”

Marigold grinned, reaching out to him, running her fingers through his wild curly hair. She’d definitely done a number on it throughout the night, during all the times they’d made love. She liked how it was silky soft, and yet wiry and springy beneath her fingers, the curls holding their shape even after so much touching. It was so unlike her own hair, that had never been anything but stick straight.

“Asha and I went before she left Harvard,” Marigold explained. “We each got one. Hers is a line in Sanskrit. It was our graduation gift to each other.”

He pressed his lips over the flower head and flicked his tongue against her skin, mimicking the lapping flames on the charred wood of the dying fire beside them. With a grin at her resulting breathy cry, he lightly scraped it with his teeth, biting then laving his tongue to soothe the twinge of pain. Gooseflesh rose on her skin, tightening her breasts and pebbling her nipples.

Though she understood the mechanics of their connection, she still wondered how something like that playful nip felt. How he knew, already, exactly what she liked and what her body wanted. What it craved.

“Why’d you choose that spot?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I supposed it was least likely to stretch there if I ever carried a child.”

He kissed the spot again and turned until his knees were supporting him between her legs and his mouth traveled over her stomach. His tongue trailed around her belly button and moved further north. Stopping for a second, he met her gaze. “And do you want babies?”

Marigold’s cheeks burned. Of course, she’d always thought she’d want at least one, but she had given up hope when things just weren’t working with any of her previous boyfriends or lovers. Now, almost after the point, she realized that not all hope for that dream was lost. Not with him hovering above her, waiting patiently yet invested in her answer.

Even so, she didn’t really want to dwell on the rising tide of optimism in her heart that this thing between them might actually work out and they’d make it to a point where they were both prepared to have children. Maybe, even if it did work, the time had already passed? Maybe they were both too set on their paths in life to have a family. Being together with each other was tough enough for her to envision, sure, but more than that? She just didn’t know.

“I… do,” she said softly. “But I’m getting older.”

A light chuckle escaped him. “You’re hardly ancient, Marigold.”

She giggled in response, but it was more from the tickle of his scruff against the underside of her right breast than anything else. He sucked the corresponding nipple between his teeth, doing to it what he’d done to her tattoo. She arched her body into him and whispered his name.

“Is it odd to be thinking of a future with you and it’s only been a few days?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, his voice deathly serious, thick with emotion.

But that’s all he said, no more, no less. It was enough to make that hope monster rear back up inside her heart. Could it really be this easy? Everything she’d ever heard and read about romantic twin flames said this was how it would be, but she’d never believed it. And with him, well… she just didn’t know if, logically, they could make it happen. Up here, in the safety of her forest and cottage, anything was possible. But elsewhere…

It all seemed  _too_  easy. Like there was something lurking around the corner, a roadblock, they were missing.

She drew him up to her by tugging on his curls. He came easily, stretching and rubbing along her body until he lay beside her, one of his long legs possessively stretching across hers and twining with her ankles. His hands encircled her shoulders, pulling her flush against him. Then his mouth was on hers in a lazy, penetrating kiss. She felt it all the way to her toes, but she had no more energy to do anything. His lips, lazy as they were, belied his own exhaustion even though other parts of him were preparing for round four.

“We really should be getting back,” she murmured into his mouth, gliding her hands down his back, then tucking herself more closely to him. Not that there was much space left between them, but she couldn’t deny the feeling of utter protection and fulfillment his arms and body created when they were wrapped around her just so.

This constant urge to melt into him, to become one, hadn’t ceased or lessened in all the times and all the ways they’d had each other over the last six hours. In fact, it multiplied, consuming them, each insatiable in their need to be rejoined. What was it going to be like in the real world when other commitments required them to part from each other? How was that ever going to work?

“Soon,” he said. “We’ll go back soon.”

She closed her eyes, losing herself in his seduction, though she was already a sure thing. Somewhere in the periphery, she heard the rip of a condom wrapper, felt him arranging and holding her thigh around his hip. He dipped down and lifted, slipping inside her unhurriedly, sheathing himself to the hilt. When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her, watching her, listening. What she saw in his blue gaze stole what remained of her ragged breaths. Maybe he wouldn’t voice it, maybe he hadn’t even admitted it to himself yet, but it was there. 

A promise.

Sincerity. Understanding. Even, she thought, the love that she, herself, had noticed creeping into her own heart.

Then it was gone, as suddenly as it flashed across his face, replaced with a knit brow and concentration as he moved within her and pressed his mouth to hers. His hips rocked, undulating rather than pounding at any major rate of speed, taking his time. As if to show her they had all the time in the world.

They came apart sometime later while laying in each other’s arms, in the same way the sun creeps over the horizon with the new day. Slow at first, and then coming all at once, from deep periwinkle, to misty blue-gray, to glowing golden warmth. They reveled in the thrum of the mystical stretching between them, blooming bright and exploding, as it had every time he’d taken her throughout the night. The whole interlude seemed to be a wordless explanation, a reassurance that this was real and so much larger than they were. It only grew stronger—better—each time.

Eventually, the fire extinguished itself and they took their time gingerly moving about the stone circle redressing and cleaning up the mess they had made. Tom made sure the fire was completely out while she folded blankets and stole his jacket, her thin ceremonial gown no match for the morning chill.

“I can’t believe the fire was enough to keep us warm all night,” Tom said as he joined her side again, twining his fingers with hers.

She laughed. “Well, part of the reason is that the stones retain some of the ambient heat from the fire.”

They passed the largest monolith into the clearing, where it was markedly colder. She had prepared for this sudden drop in temperature. The secondary wave of ice, not due to the time of morning or the weather, however, was another story altogether. It hit her like a brick wall, constricting her lungs, stealing her breath, and forcing every muscle in her body to contract painfully. She pulled his jacket tighter, warding off the frosty chill curling up her spine.

It was a strange sensation, even for her.

Marigold paused and looked around them, shivering uncomfortably, the tiny hairs on her arms prickling in the sudden peculiar wash of energy. She tried to give Tom her full attention, to keep moving with him, but her mind was diverted to something else. A crack of a tree limb in the distance, she thought, but convinced herself it was nothing. Just the natural sounds of semi-frozen flora in the early spring.

“What is it?” he asked.

She glanced up at him, finding the confusion wrinkling his brow. Had he felt it—heard it—too? Or was he simply playing off her? She cleared her throat. She’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours, with maybe a catnap or two with Tom.  It had to be nothing, her mind playing tricks on her. Even as a witch, she still had to distinguish between sleep deprivation or true magical impulses.

“I just realized I’m exhausted,” she replied with a yawn. It was true. Physically and mentally. She needed to sleep.

He grinned wolfishly, spinning her around and pulling her to his body as he started them walking again. She had to admit, leaning against him, using his body heat, made it easier to focus on their path home. It certainly fended off the lingering doubt in her mind about what she’d heard, as well as the cold.

“I also really need a shower,” she said. “I smell like campfire and sex.”

He chuckled. “I think we both do.”

“Just a shower, Thomas,” she warned. “I literally don’t want you to think about this,” she waved to her lower half, “for at least eight hours.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” he warned, pressing his lips to hers.

Marigold frowned. “Why is that?”

Tom grinned. “That’s about all I can think about right now.”

“I will use the appropriate herbal supplements in my arsenal to knock you out,” she said. “Don’t tempt me.”

His low laughter carried them into the house, surprisingly already alive with activity. Jim was at the hob, pulling a tray of just-baked bannocks from the heat. Rashers sizzled in a cast iron skillet and other edible sundries littered the counters. The smell was amazing and her stomach immediately growled at the sight. She hadn’t realized what an appetite they’d worked up.

Jim looked up from his work, a glint of mischief in his eyes. Marigold, typically never embarrassed by such things, felt her face warm at his brief unspoken inspection. He followed it up with a fatherly nod of his head toward Tom, as if to say, ‘well done.’

“The others aren’t quite awake yet,” Jim explained with a grin tugging at his lips. “You still have some time to get cleaned up.”

Marigold didn’t need more motivation than that, dragging Tom upstairs to her bedroom. They showered quickly, though Marigold wished she’d made an allowance for a two-person shower instead of one. It would have made things a lot easier when trying to maneuver around a six-foot-two oak tree. Fortunately, he was all too eager to help her wash, making sure to take his time in exactly the places she told him to ignore.  She feigned upset, but it was impossible to keep a straight face or hold back her delighted sighs. Of course, she paid him back in kind.

By the time they were dressed and made their way downstairs, the other three were sitting around the kitchen table clutching their heads and blinking bleary, sleep-filled eyes. They stared at the food on the table before them, clearly trying not to vomit.

Asha was the first to look up at them. She seemed to be the least affected by the wine, but that was only because she had known what to expect and held back a bit during the previous evening’s revelry. “I really need some hangover tea, Marigold.”

“It looks like you all do,” Marigold said. “Olly, Jess?”

“I don’t really want to put anything in my mouth right now,” Jess said.

Tom chuckled. “It works.”

Jess groaned, dropping her head on her arms. “I don’t care how you get into me. Just take away the pain. I’m begging you.”

Marigold giggled and went to the cupboard where she’d stored the herbal mixture she’d made the previous afternoon. She knew they’d need it, and had planned ahead for them. Once she set the kettle to brew, she set out teacups in front of her friends.

Olly gurgled. “It was only wine. Why does it hurt so much?”

“To be fair, I warned you all,” Marigold said.

When she received no response from them, she went back to the counters and grabbed an empty plate to fill up on food. It all looked so good. She glanced at Jim, who was finishing the last of the rashers, and smiled. “Can I keep you around? You’re a good cook.”

Jim laughed at her. “Only good at a few things. Right, Thomas?”

Tom groaned around a mouthful of honey-slathered bannock. “He once made something called Mystery Scottish Stew. It was horrible.”

“I didn’t have the proteins I thought I did, so I chopped up some haggis we had on hand,” Jim confided, his lips curling in distaste. “I don’t recommend it. Even if you like haggis.”

The sound of Olly retching from his spot at the kitchen table made them all turn. Fortunately, nothing came up, but Marigold rushed his tea. And then she waited for all of them to come back around to the land of the living. Pretty soon, they were eating and laughing. Quietly, but still back to laughing and now, marginally, enjoying the morning.

“Told you the tea was amazing,” Tom said, elbowing Olly.

Olly nodded. “Now if I could just have a store of it for future benders.”

Marigold shook her head. “And like I told Tom, I don’t give it out to people to use on their own. Needs to be administered under the watchful eye of a physician or a witch.”

“I don’t think it’s fair that you get to keep all the good stuff to yourself,” he said.

“How do you think all those medicine men and women made a living through history, Olly?” she asked. “We keep the knowledge and charge the premium for the service. Besides, also like I told Tom, an herbal mixture is an herbal mixture. You might get some relief from making it yourself, but when I make it for you, I imbue it with other… properties. Whether you believe in magic or not, it’s true.”

Olly held up his hands defensively. “If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last day, it’s to just agree with you because I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Sound advice for any dealings with all women, Ol,” Tom muttered over his coffee. Marigold walked behind him and gently smacked the back of his head. Then she sat down in the seat beside him.

Asha glanced at her watch and stood up. “I need to get going. I have a lecture at ten and I need to stop at home for a change.”

“Your keys and phone are in the cupboard under the stairs,” Marigold said.

Asha came around and the table and threw her arms around her friend’s neck. She kissed her cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here to stay.”

“I am, too… let me walk you out,” Marigold said, getting up and following her friend to the front door. Marigold opened the heavy wood and moved to take a step, but froze in her spot.

Sitting on the welcome mat was a big brown wicker basket full of spring flowers. Asha came up beside her and grinned down at the image before them. “Oh, look, you left us flowers this morning like Aunt Violet used to do!”

Marigold felt the blood drain from her face. “Asha, I didn’t put them there.”

She frowned. “Well, maybe one of her friends came by and left them. They probably all know you’re back now. Violet used to say it was a peace offering, right?”

Unless Cora had told others, Cora and her family were the only ones that knew about her being back. Had they come all the way out here to deliver a customary May Day basket of flowers? It seemed unlikely knowing Cora’s age, but there was still a possibility she’d sent Sylvie with them. Marigold eyed the flowers again, though, considering the varieties of buds clumped together.

Asha bent down to touch them, but Marigold shot a hand out, batting her friend away from the basket. “Don’t touch it!”

“Why?”

“There’re stinging nettles and hellebore in there,” Marigold said. “If your skin comes into contact with them, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

Asha frowned again, this time looking up at Marigold. “Why would someone leave them, then?”

Marigold sighed. It  _couldn’t_ be Cora. Cora wouldn’t be sending her an ill wish. But, who, then? She hadn’t offended anyone. She’d had no contact with anyone else who would know something about May Day baskets. “I don’t know. Just don’t touch it. Separately, the flowers don’t really mean anything bad. They’re all traditional spring plants—in fact, you can find them all out in the wood.”

Even as she said it, and the reality of the situation filtered in her brain, the icy tendril from earlier crept up her spine anew. This time, it lodged a million tiny hooks into her body until it was a part of her. She shivered and crossed her arms over herself. Her head felt heavy and her heart stuttered.

Had these come from the forest behind her cottage? Had there been someone out there with them this morning? Or was this completely random? If it were a witch, she would know that these flowers together—though their meanings might be innocuous individually—were not a happy omen to bestow upon anyone. There was no mistaking the intent of the poisonous plants.

Asha pushed the basket aside with the toe of her shoe, and stepped out onto the front stoop. “Just ignore it, Marigold. I’m sure it’s nothing bad. Maybe some people trying to be welcoming, but not really knowing what they were doing.”

“Asha, they’d be dead on my doorstep right now if they’d handled these plants without knowing what they could do,” Marigold explained. “You have to wear gloves to harvest them. No random person gathering flowers is going to know that.”

Asha grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. “Quit worrying about it, Ree. I know you see a sign in everything, but for once in your life, just ignore it. Go back into the kitchen and enjoy your breakfast and Tom. Why ruin the last twenty-four hours by worrying?”

Marigold sighed. “You’re probably right.”

“I am right,” Asha said, pushing a tendril of hair over Marigold’s ear in a motherly fashion. “Have a good first day of work, too. We’ll go out this weekend if you can pull your mouth off Tom’s dick long enough to do so.”

And just like that, Marigold lost it. Asha hardly ever flirted with the profane when she talked, but she certainly knew how to make an impact when she did. “I love you, Asha.”

“I know you do,” she said, jumping down the front steps onto the gravel path leading to the line of cars in the drive. “I need to go or I’m going to be late for my lecture. I’m sure my students would be heartbroken.”

“I’m sure,” Marigold intoned, waving her hand as Asha shut herself into her car and turned the ignition on. She waited until the car was out of sight before she turned back into the house, trying her best to forget the basket of dangerous flowers still sitting on her front porch.

She’d deal with them later, after everyone was gone and she had a good sleep. So much had happened, not only in the last day, but the last forty-eight hours. She hadn’t really had time to process it all. To even begin to comprehend what it all meant. Maybe it would make more sense afterward. Maybe she was missing something, which was more than possible.

With a yawn and sigh, she closed the door and returned to Tom.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry about the wait on this one… had some other things pop up first. I hope you enjoy it!

Back when Marigold was a teenager, her father bought her a brand-new Zelda game for her then state-of-the-art Nintendo64. Her mother, at the time, had called it a cheap bribe to get her to stay with him in New York, rather than choosing to spend more time with her than the two-and-a-half months they typically were together in England for the summer holidays.

That, of course, hadn’t been the case at all.

The courts decided it was in Marigold’s best interest to stay in a community she’d already started growing up in, where she had a stable extended family environment, with a parent who was gainfully employed. Anything was better than allowing full-time custody of a minor to a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants drifter who lived off the land and never stayed anywhere longer than a few months. They weren’t even willing to budge when she’d become a teenager—not that Marigold would have ever chosen to live with her mother in the majority. Though she wanted her daughter near her, Camelia never engendered a close relationship between them, instead treating Marigold like an outcast for supposedly loving her father more.

It was strange to Marigold to be thinking about such a painful time now, as she wandered through a misty forest running her fingers across feather-like fern leaves and smoothing over soft moss-crowned rocks. She sighed and breathed in the pungent pine air, stopping to listen to the tree songs and feel the warm spring breeze ruffling her hair. The scent of violet and rose drifted into her consciousness, teasing her, making her skin tingle with remembrance. This place of memory, this dream-vision location she sometimes found herself transported to, always made her feel comfortable and full. Wonderful. It was a place of love and serenity.

She walked through the glade silently, peering through the needled trees as they morphed into giant red sequoias, imagining herself to be a lot like Link searching for treasure on his quest for Zelda. The only thing she needed was an annoying ball of fairy following her everywhere and cataloging what she saw for future reference.

Truthfully, Marigold never knew what she might find in these visions, or how they would bleed one thing into the next, and if the change was important to remember or ignore. Would it remain a dream, become a vision, or turn into a visit?

Violet hadn’t made the attempt to contact her since Samhain last year when she’d told her to come home. But like Samhain, Beltane was the opposite end of the cycle, again blurring the barriers of the spirit plane with the living, making it easier to conduct spirit work. Marigold had hoped she’d visit, perhaps to ask her if they knew anything about the basket of flowers still sitting on the front stoop, but it didn’t seem like either Rose or Violet wanted to come out to chat.

And yet, they were there, still. They were the warmth embracing her, the breeze wrapping around her and brushing her cheek like a kiss, the smell of rose and violet on the wind. Marigold sighed and breathed in again. She swore, if she concentrated just a little harder, she could feel their strong arms pulling her to them in a hug, breathing in the earthy floral scent on their clothes. Violet always smelled like clean cotton and gardenia.

Rose bushes and violets in full bloom manifested around her, twining together and forming into a colorful thicket of brambles like the vines that covered Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Before her, an open dirt path cut through the foliage, leading to the very edge of the forest overlooking a babbling brook. There were flowers here, too, though different from the others. Ten umbrella-shaped sprouts of tiny white flowers on the end of long thick stalks lined the banks of the running water, looking beautiful in their repose.

To a casual horticulturist, the flowers might appear to be Queen Anne’s lace, innocuous and sweet, but they’d be making a deadly mistake. This was hemlock, more appropriately a type of water hemlock found only in North America. It’s European cousin, poison hemlock, was used in early forms of chemically-administered executions in Greece.

When Marigold visited her mother in Fresno one year for Spring Break, she’d almost mistakenly picked a stalk of it while they went foraging in the sequoia forest. Her mother had stopped her in time and then lectured her about the plant she’d found.

Though magical and lay people still used much watered-down, weak versions of the plant for valid medicinal purposes, touching a newly-grown plant without drying or, simply, eating any part of the plant raw could cause a potentially fatal reaction. The fear of making such a mistake kept Marigold away from hemlock and a few others, in general. It made the green hellebore sitting in the basket on her front stoop look like child’s play. She immediately sensed the chilling threat evident in the appearance of such a noxious plant, and froze still in her dream world, refusing to continue her trek.

She observed the path ahead, edging the riverbank. A nasty black cloud hung over the forest, dropping buckets of rain, the dark sky slashed with lightning. Marigold shivered and crossed her arms over herself, turning back toward the thicket of violets and roses. They were gone, her previous path completely obscured in thorns. She frowned, frantically whipping her head to the side when thunder crashed around her. A voice, sing-songy and sickly sweet carried on the whistling wind, bearing her name in its haunting refrain.

This was the exact moment her eyes shot open to a warm sun-drenched bedroom, a man’s strong arm stretched across her belly protectively. Not a lot of good that did. She blinked rapidly up at the ceiling and tried controlling her shallow breaths, gulping for air, orienting herself to the world of the living.

Why the fuck did they always do this? Why couldn’t they just give her the whole message they wanted to share and be done with it? Now she was left with a headache from their intrusion into her dreams, absolutely no answers, and she was sweating like a menopausal woman suffering a hot flash.

She groaned, tossing the heavy bedcovers off her legs onto the sleeping man beside her. She slipped from his grasp, heading straight to the bathroom. Stopping in front of the sink, she filled a glass with cold water and swallowed it all, wiping her lips with the back of her hand after she set the glass aside. She was wide awake, but she felt hazy. Sick to her stomach with anxiety and the remnants of her astral traveling.  

“Marigold?” came the sleepy male voice from the other room.

She swallowed down a constricted throat and set her hands on the porcelain sink, holding onto it for support should she faint. “Yeah?” she answered weakly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Bad dream.”

 _I think_.

He made a small harrumphing sound. Bedclothes rustled. He appeared in the doorway, his hair looking like he stepped out of a Flock of Seagulls album, lines from pillow wrinkles pressed into the side of his face, and his boxers riding dangerously low on his hips. Damn, he was gorgeous like this. Just striking enough to make her focus on something else for a moment.

“You don’t look fine,” he said. Stepping into the room, he touched her forehead and clucked like a mother hen. “You’re burning up. Maybe we shouldn’t have spent Sunday night outside…”

Her laugh felt raw on her throat. “I’m not sick, Tom. It was a dream. A magical dream.”

“A what?”

“A vision,” she said. “This is what happens after I have one. I’m fine.”

Not really, but she hoped it sounded truthful because she didn’t want to get into discussing it now. Especially since this wasn’t a completely typical reaction to a vision. They’d never felt threatening before, and she wasn’t about to tell him that. He’d either worry or roll his eyes in disbelief.

“If you say so,” he sighed, not resisting to pull her into his arm anyway, pressing his lips to the feverish skin creased in worry on her forehead.

Marigold relaxed instantly, there in his embrace, her body sagging against him. She enjoyed the support, literally and figuratively. It felt good. It felt right. It felt perfect. There was something to be said for having another person know exactly what she needed without having to voice it.

She settled her ear against his chest, listening to the steady, healthy rhythm of his heart. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and tuned into the beat, realigning herself. Her heart finally settled, along with her roiling stomach and breathing, and the cool bathroom air curled up her body to force a shiver out of her.  He held her tighter, fingers burying into her nightshirt-covered flesh.  She turned her head and brushed her lips over his left pectoral before craning her neck to look up at him.

“Why are you still here, anyway?”

His face contorted into a look of concern. “Excuse me?”

“It’s Tuesday morning,” she murmured. “I thought I only agreed to the weekend on Friday.”

“Funny, really,” he replied.

Marigold giggled and patted his chest, scraping her fingers through the fine dusting of hair over his sternum. “You do have to go home, though.”

“I _am_  home,” he said.

Her heart danced a little jig. “I start work tomorrow, in London.”

“Okay, then come down and stay with me for the rest of the week,” he said. “Why did you even agree to this posting if you’re so far away?”

She smiled. “Well, my position is mostly telecommuting, really. I’m expected in the office a few days a month, but everything can be done via web these days. Especially since we’re graphic designers and artists—we’re in front of a computer or drafting board ninety percent of the day anyway. Just this first week or so I need to be in office to get up to speed.”

He nodded his head slowly, pursing his lips together in thought. “So, say, if I was going to be filming on location in some other country, you could, conceivably, make it work to come with me?”

“Conceivably, yes,” she replied. The fact that he was thinking like this—like he already saw forever—stunned her. She knew what she felt, of course, and he’d alluded to it, too… but she kept a healthy dose of reality nearby for moments like this. Could he really have changed his mind so quickly? Was their connection really enough to convince him of a happily ever after with one woman?

“I’ll be in Atlanta for a bit this summer,” he said. “I’d really love it if you could come for at least part of the time.”

Marigold nodded. “We’ll see when we get closer.”

“Fair enough,” Tom replied. “In the meantime, pack some clothes and spend the rest of the week with me in London. Between work, of course.”

“We will need some time apart eventually, Tom,” she said. “We can’t keep riding this high.”

Tom shrugged. “And why the hell not? It’ll mature eventually.”

She laughed at him. “Hopefully before we get sick of each other.”

“Honestly, Marigold,” he said, “I’ve never found living with someone to be easier than it has been with you the last few days. It’s like we understand each other’s rhythms and it meshes.”

“Be still my beating heart.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice as she clenched her chest and stepped out of his arms. “I don’t know what to say.”

He laughed and grabbed her again. “Say you’ll spend the rest of the week with me.”

“Until Friday,” she said. “I’m supposed to go out with Asha that night. Girls only.”

“Also fair,” he replied. “But you have to let me take you out on a real date tomorrow night. All this living together stuff is great, but you have to give me the opportunity to romance you properly.”

Marigold could have died laughing at the way he wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. “You’re ridiculous.”

“As you’ve said many times,” he replied.

She sighed. “I’ll only agree to stay with you and go on a date if you promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“I get to sleep in your bed  _with_ you.”

“That is a foregone conclusion.”

Marigold nodded. “ _And_  you can’t kick me out of it.”

“Never gonna happen, darling,” he said. “Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” she answered, though she wanted to tell him not to say ‘never’. That word was a gigantic neon sign for Fate—and all her other bitchy relatives—to come crash the party, and they usually did with impunity.

She didn’t actually say anything else, though, instead choosing to pull him into the shower again and show him exactly how much she hoped her misgivings never came to fruition.

* * *

Tom parked the Jaguar in a spot just outside the shop Marigold had directed him to, in one of the smaller, less densely populated areas of Cambridge. She convinced him to stop here before they made the drive back to London, saying the lady she’d spoken to on Saturday had asked for a full report after Beltane on how the curse breaking went. Tom was a bit dubious about all of this, much less the possibility of being seen walking into a shop that had dreamcatchers hanging in the windows and an assortment of pentagram-covered stationery on display.

But, looking over at Marigold as she unlatched the seatbelt and gathered her purse to her chest, he knew he’d do pretty much anything for her at this point. Even if it meant sacrificing a good image in public.

Though this was all new and they had so much to learn about each other—mature their relationship past the honeymoon stage—he already knew this was forever. There wasn’t another woman he’d ever had, or could ever conceive of having, that felt the same to him. It mystified him and, yet, made everything in his body bubble with excitement that he’d finally found  _her_. That he was capable of even recognizing she was The One after so long not believing in such a thing, and that he was completely ready to jump into this insanity feet first.

“You really don’t have to come in if you don’t want to,” she said, sensing his reticence.

He shook his head and reached out for her, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “I want to come in. This is a part of your life.”

Her bright grin and misty eyes made him melt like some lovesick milksop. He wanted her to look at him like that for the rest of his life. He’d die a happy man if she did.

They entwined their fingers together and walked into the shop, but he immediately dropped her hand in wonderment the moment the door closed behind them. The shop wasn’t overly large or, at least, didn’t seem so with as much inventory they had packed into every possible nook and cranny. His eyes flitted over a stand of animal skulls and a display of sparkling crystals and gemstones by the till, then swept up and down the crooked aisles of other occult objects. His attention lingered on the wall in the back covered in every manner of knife—from the very basic dagger to long, curved blades he could not, for the life of him, recall the name of.

He breathed deeply and filled his lungs with tangy herbal air, feeling strangely calm despite just how much he was the veritable fish-out-of-water.

A woman about their age with glossy chestnut hair stuck her head out of a back room, shock registering first on her face when she saw him, then a kind smile. She stepped out, looking like any other suburban mum with a pale pink cashmere jumper over a matching blouse, the jumper closed at her throat with a singular pearl button. She’d completed the look with khaki trousers and flat loafers.

It struck him, then, just how much appearances could deceive. Knowing what little he did about Marigold’s seemingly real abilities, he could only imagine what this woman, with the largest stormy grey eyes he’d ever seen, could do. She looked uniquely harmless, but he wondered, idly, if she were really some dark sorceress masquerading in fancy dress to fool the locals of her respectability.

What did  _she_  get up to in the woods at night?

A young child, the exact copy of the woman, bopped out of the room behind her, running full steam around the counter till to greet the customers, all without stopping.

“Welcome to Pagan Moon Botanicals and Trinkets. How may we help you?” the little girl chirped.

“Wonderful job, Bella,” the woman cooed while patting her daughter’s shoulder, and looked at them again. “Never too early to start them early learning the family trade, eh?”

Her words seemed to mean more to Marigold, who grinned in that particular way two people do when they’re in on the same secret. Marigold then chuckled when Bella walked straight over to Tom and looked all the way up at his face with a quizzical expression. “You’re a  _norm_.”

“A… what?” he asked.

“A muggle,” Marigold replied.

“Oh,” he said. He’s never read Harry Potter—or seen the movies in their entirety. But he knew the term. Did he look that out of place? How did the child know he didn’t possess any interest in witchcraft? He carefully lowered onto his haunches to peer directly at her. “I suppose I am.”

Bella seemed disappointed, frowning. “But Mummy said you used magic in the movie! You made it look like Thor’s arm was gone!”

He didn’t need clarification on that, slipping briefly into fan-pleasing Actor Mode. Part of him wanted to play into it with Bella, not rip away the belief that Loki’s magic wasn’t real in the films, but he already knew he’d not be able to get it past Bella. If— _if—_ magic was real, she clearly understood he didn’t possess the appropriate mutation necessary to make the impossible possible. That she knew it just by looking at him was a might unsettling, though.

So, he answered truthfully, “That was just a movie, darling. The magic exists only in our imagination and they add it in with a computer.”

“No, it doesn’t!” she protested. “Magic is real. I can do it. Mummy and Granny, and my great-gran can, too.”

Bella’s mother stepped between them then, diverting Bella’s attention. “Why don’t you take him and show him what you just learned?”

“Without you?” Bella’s eyes widened at her mother. “Can I, really?”

Tom frowned. “I’m not gonna end up with an unsightly wart or anything, am I?”

Marigold scoffed. “If you don’t shut up and go with the kid, you might. And she won’t be the one to do it.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, waving his hands. “I can see when I’m not wanted.”

Bella’s little hand slipped into one of his. She pulled him past the till and back into a room with a desk heaping with sheaves of paperwork and additional inventory not for sale. An older computer sat pride of place on the desk, but he couldn’t locate a keyboard or mouse, buried as they must have been under a stack of invoices or something.

Bella had her own desk, a small plastic one, and on it sat many different squares of colored paper, with some folded neatly into origami animal shapes. They seemed a little too complicated for a child of her age—which he estimated to be about six—so he supposed her mother had helped to construct them.

And now Bella was about to give him a tutorial on it, as well.

“Come sit,” she instructed, pointing at the ground beside the table.

As he folded his long legs in front of him and settled, he had the errant thought that he’d make Marigold pay for foisting him off on the little one as a childminder. Not harshly, of course, but he certainly would rather have accompanied her around the shop. Give her the opportunity to show him things, introduce her to the mysterious old crone she’d described.

Clearly, she wanted a moment to talk with the “adults” alone; it miffed him, maybe too much, that he’d been relegated to the equivalent of the ubiquitous child’s table every family had at large Christmas dinners. He wanted to know why she was insistent on stopping here before they left, especially since he’d a niggling suspicion something wasn’t quite right. He’d felt it when they came back to the cottage after their midnight revels. It was something he did not understand, or, perhaps, had any hope of understanding. Her strangeness this morning after her supposed dream only confirmed it. Made the strangeness worse.

Now that he’d opened himself up to the possibility of all of this being true, she seemed to be pulling back and, almost, hiding things from him. As though she thought he couldn’t possibly handle the true weight of what it meant. But he  _wanted_  to. He  _needed_  to. He wasn’t going to let her do this to him without a bit of a fight. He wanted them to be equal in everything.

“Are we going to fold paper?” he asked, now turning to Uncle Mode. “I can’t say I’m very good at it.”

“No, silly,” Bella laughed jollily and grabbed the already-constructed blue paper crane. She inspected the folds and held her small hand out with it sitting on her palm. “See?”

He nodded. “Yes, it’s very pretty.”

She grinned widely and grabbed one of his hands, unfurling his fingers until he exposed his own palm. He took her meaning and thrust it beside her hand, waiting for her to drop the paper bird there.  Bella frowned and shook her head. “No! Put the back of your hand here.” She demonstrated by tapping her free hand on his knee.

So he did, palm flat and facing up, as he stared at the little girl. Seemingly content with the position of his appendage, she grinned, nodded, and lifted her hand to her mouth. Her lips puckered and she blew on the bird.

Ever since he’d met Marigold, he’d seen and experienced many odd incidences. Many he still couldn’t explain and many more he was quickly cementing in his brain as being of a paranormal variety. Even, after all his protest, finally applying the word “magic” to them without balking at the connotation of the word.

He supposed what the child proceeded to do qualified as one of those moments, but it was also more. More than anything Marigold had attempted around him. Marigold had taken away a hangover, made a cut disappear from his hand, massaged away the pain in his shoulders, taught him how to connect with the effervescent energy of the earth.

But this little girl—this  _strange_  little girl—standing in front of him made an inanimate paper crane  _fly_.

Like a real fucking bird.

Straight from her hand to his, where it landed gracefully with a sweep of its paper wings and stilled back into its formerly stiff shape.

He blinked again and again, staring at the crane, his brain rapidly trying to make sense of what he’d witnessed. The wings, they’d moved.  _Flapped._  The crane hadn’t just tumbled from her hand to his, like a piece of paper  _he_ would blow on to move to another location. It hadn’t fallen with grace. This thing had its own locomotion, operated under its own power, hovering over the gaping space between their hands as its wings moved up and down, up and down, to reach its new perch.

The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled; a chilling tingle straightened his back. He swallowed down a sandpaper throat and smacked his lips, trying to find words to fill the space between them. Something, anything, that might make sense to him, or to a six-year-old. He couldn’t think of anything.

In fact, he realized he understood nothing. His mind was completely blank. This was the quintessential meaning of a mind being blown. Literally, figuratively, everything in between. He saw the cosmos in a new light, felt the energy around him differently. Everything he’d ever known had been thrown into a jar, shaken up and spilled back out.  _None_  of it could be pieced back together quickly.

He knew then, deep inside him, in his very core, finally…

Magic existed.

Magic was real, unequivocally.

_Magic._

There was no other way to describe what he’d witnessed. This little girl was incapable of guile like he’d initially accused Marigold of when she’d first told him of her abilities. Bella wasn’t deceiving him or playing a trick on him. This, as plain as day, was a pure moment of magic.

 _Magic!_  My god, he was laughing like a lunatic inside his head.  _Who would have thought?_

Finally, he parted his lips, breathing shallowly. “Can you, uh… can you do that again, Bella?”

He had to confirm it. Had to see it again. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe—

Bella picked the crane back up and set it on her hand, repeating the process. Once again, the crane landed gently on his hand, to Bella’s delighted laughter and clapping. “My mummy’s going to be so happy!”

He’d seen enough. “That was very good, Bella. But will you excuse me?”

The look in her eyes said she understood his discomfort. She suddenly seemed so much older than her years when she nodded at him, relieving him of his duty as her minder. He tried handing the crane back to her but she shook her head and wrapped his fingers gently around the delicate bird. “You take it.”

“Really, I can’t Bella,” he said.

Belly turned away from him. “Would you like one of the other animals? I like the elephant, too. But the crane is my favorite. Mummy hasn’t shown me the others, yet. You should take the crane so you can remember me.”

_Trust me, kid, I won’t be forgetting you anytime soon._

He laughed breathlessly. Incredulously. “Are you sure I can have it?”

“Uh-huh.” She gave a definitive nod and turned back to her paper menagerie, forgetting him.

Tom stayed a moment longer watching her, waiting for the other animals to spring to life, but none of them did. Bella moved them with her own hands, making varying animal sounds in her makeshift zoo. He blinked a few more times, trying to reconcile everything zooming through his head.  _Had_  he imagined the crane?

No. No, he hadn’t. The bloody thing  _flew_.

Carefully, he got up from his seat and exited the backroom. He didn’t see Marigold immediately and glanced at Bella’s mother. “Tell Marigold I’m in the car, will you?”

“Are you okay?” she asked politely. “You look a bit peaky. My gran and Marigold were just sitting down to a cup of tea, if you would like to join them.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

Tom let himself out and went straight to the car, where he sat in silence in the driver’s seat, with the paper crane sitting lifelessly on the dashboard in front of him.

How was it even possible?


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And… I’m back. Apologies for the hiatus on this, but I hope you still love it!

Marigold had been unusually quiet the entire car ride back to London, confusing Tom more than he was already confused after his interactions with Bella. He wanted to talk to Marigold, tell her he believed her now; he saw magic with his own eyes, saw the crane flap its paper wings right into his hand. Had he not beheld such an improbable—impossible—sight, he still would have been on the fence about the whole thing.

However, talking to her about anything seemed impossible when she slipped into the car after speaking with Cora. She’d been withdrawn, her face pensive with a furrowed brow, staring out at the countryside but ultimately unseeing of the lush beauty of the new spring as he drove along the motorway. He may not have known her for that long, but he felt it, deep in his soul, that something wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t been this morning. It scraped at his brain and ate at his gut. It must have been what she meant about being a twin flame, that they would sense these sorts of things about each other. He hadn’t realized that it would be so blatant in the good… and the bad.

Or that it would make him as worried for her as he was. Whatever she’d discussed with Cora—no, it had started when she woke up this morning, he thought—hadn’t made her happy. At the very least, it made her quiet. And a quiet Marigold was not something he was accustomed to in their short relationship. Something was wrong. And she was an absolute sphinx, keeping it all hidden from him.

He let her be, though, focusing on the roads instead to ensure that they arrived in London in one piece. He’d always been a bit of a reckless driver before now; it was so easy to speed a little too much in a sports car like his Jaguar. Before, he hadn’t cared about life or limb, much. Now, though, he came to a full stop as needed, and obeyed every traffic warning. Strange how quickly things could change, almost in the blink of an eye.

When they arrived at his house, the lilac shrub in the front yard had grown at least another two feet in each direction, a riot of purple-blues that made him shake his head. At least he could count on his home being well protected if those flowers really were the difference between unwanted visitors or not. It made him smile.

“I have to say,” Marigold finally spoke, her voice rough from more than an hour of disuse. She paused and cleared her throat as she turned to look at him. “I never thought I’d be back here.”

Tom laughed, the tension broken. “Make that the two of us.”

“I’m just happy that I get to sleep in your comfy bed,” she replied. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

“I don’t know what amount of sleeping you think we’re going to get done.”

Marigold turned her cerulean eyes on him, a twinkle manifesting within them. “If I don’t get my beauty sleep, I turn into the Wicked Witch of the West. Fair warning.”

“It’s alright.” Tom got out of the car and opened the boot to retrieve their bags. He didn’t know why Marigold needed a piece of weekend-sized luggage and a garment bag for a total of three days in London. There’d be no need for clothes inside the house. “I’ll just throw a bit of water on you and you’ll melt.”

“Coincidentally,” Marigold laughed as he walked around the car to join her. “You’ll have more luck plying me with chocolate and wine in a bubble bath. Just saying.”

Tom grinned and leaned down, brushing his lips across hers. She still tasted of lemon and sugar from her tea with Cora earlier. “Dually noted.”

She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest but settled into the spot against him where she somehow fit so perfectly. He wondered if it was possible to be cut from the same bit of clay as she, as if some celestial being came along and made one smooth cut in one piece like a jigsaw, her soft curves fitting so well into every single one of his ridges. Even their height difference made sense, despite the foot of space in their height difference.

Her eyes turned toward the house again and landed on the large lilac plant. “I should take some cuttings from that and start a few new bushes around the house. A perimeter is always better protection.”

“I don’t think I need that much.” He laughed, kissing the top of her head and inhaling the flowery perfume in the strands of her platinum hair. God, he couldn’t stop himself from touching her.  _Always_ touching her and kissing her. “There’s still the gate.”

“With the code you don’t always change,” she replied.

He unwound from her and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the front door. “There are more important things to worry about, though.”

Marigold followed him inside with a giggle. He wasted no time kicking the door shut behind him and setting the luggage aside. Those could wait to be dealt with later, after he’d peeled off all the clothes presently on her body and had his way with her. This time, christening his home with their budding relationship.

He spun her toward him and walked her backward until the couch in the sunken living room hit the back of her calves, just before the shrill sound of a mobile jingle pierced through the heady thrum of energy and blood pumping wildly through his veins on its path to his cock. He parted from her lips, burying his face in the crook of her neck, refusing to relinquish his hold on her body.

She muttered something that sounded vaguely like “ _Damn”_ and quickly withdrew the device from one of her pockets. Then she groaned. “It’s my dad.”

Tom wasn’t proud; he whined. “Call him back later.”

It was selfish of him to say it, because they’d been playing phone tag over the course of the last twenty-four hours trying to find a time when both she and her father were awake in their respective time zones and had the time to talk to each other. But he still said it. When she flattened her lips into a terse line that she could barely hold from the smile threatening to break through, he knew he wouldn’t be punished too badly for his selfishness.

“Hi, Dad!” she sang brightly into the phone—a little too brightly, like a child who’d just been caught red-handed. It wouldn’t have sounded so guilty if the thick emotion weren’t there clogging her throat. “How are you?”

He laughed when she had to clear her throat to speak more clearly and stepped away when she pushed on his chest. Deciding he had better use the wait to take their clothes back into the bedroom, he grabbed the luggage and dutifully put it away where it needed to go. After verifying that she was still chatting on the phone, he unzipped the garment bag to get a peek at the outfit she planned on wearing for their date—the same dress she had earlier refused to show him as she packed, saying she wanted to surprise him.

He thought that was adorable and all, but seeing as he’d already seen her naked, there was no point in being secretive about whatever she wore because he would always be planning how he was going to get her out of her clothes. He’d merely wanted to know what she planned to wear so he could more appropriately plan their date and sort his own clothing out.

It turned out to be a rather plain black dress, longer than he pictured, and classy. The neckline, though, dipped low into the top portion of the dress. He didn’t imagine her running around with her breasts hanging out because she wasn’t that type of person in public, so he knew it still had to be tame by the standards of the circles in which he traveled. He couldn’t wait to see her in it, though, just about as much as he couldn’t wait to take it right back off.

Tom returned everything to the way it had come and went back to the living room where Marigold sat on a couch with her legs crossed in a comfortable lotus position. She was hunched over herself, picking at imaginary lint on her blue jeans, apparently listening intently to her father. With a grumble, she raked her fingers through her short platinum hair and leaned back, looking toward the ceiling as though asking for some sort of divine intervention. Whatever had been said, it wasn’t good.

“No,” Marigold replied softly. “I haven’t seen her at all.”

Who was  _her_?

Marigold grumbled again. “Dad, seriously, I want you to come out here just like we planned. I don’t know where she is and she’s certainly not staying with me.”

Tom frowned now, concerned about the conversation. Was this why Marigold had been off all day?

If he were bold enough to make inferences, he’d say they were talking about Marigold’s mother, of which he knew very little. Ree always talked about Violet, as though Violet had been more of a mother to her than Camelia ever had. Violet had certainly been her main teacher in mysticism. In fact, now that he thought about it, he didn’t know much at all about any of her family members.

They’d been so caught up with the sudden and unexpected rush of lust between each other they just hadn’t had the time to learn about the most important parts of their lives. Maybe it was good to come back down to London for a few days. If not to get their bearings as a couple, then definitely to experience life and all its harsh realities outside of the insular world of a magical cottage.

He walked into the room and sat down beside Marigold, who looked up at him with an expression that gave him pause. Her usually soft features were hard and drawn, as though she hadn’t slept in ages… as though she were worried about some great task she hadn’t finished in time.

“I don’t even understand how you found out about her being over here,” she said. “Someone else told me earlier today about seeing her… but she’s made no contact with me. Well, no, I take that back, she may have—”

The blood drained from Marigold’s face. She swallowed hard and shook her head, as though banishing a troublesome thought.

“Dad, I need to go. Just promise me you’ll be at the airport when I go to pick you up next week?” She sighed into the phone after a few minutes, then closed her eyes. “I love you, too. Bye.”

Marigold hung up her side of the call and dropped the mobile on the other side of her. Then there was silence. They sat together for a long time, thighs and knees barely touching, staring out at the empty space in front of them. He didn’t even know how to broach the subject of her parents with her.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. She turned her entire body to face him, throwing her legs over his lap and leaning her head against his shoulder. He responded by pulling her legs as close as he could to his chest and skimming his fingers along the soft denim covering the back of her thighs, somewhat like strumming a guitar. Marigold shivered and relaxed into him, allowing him to bear most of her negligible weight.

“So apparently my mom’s in England and I didn’t know about it,” she said softly, barely audible with the way she buried her face into his shirt.

“Oh?” he asked.

Marigold nodded. “Cora said she stopped at the shop a few days ago, and then Dad said about a week ago, she stopped in New York looking for me.”

“And… what does she want?”

“I don’t know,” Marigold admitted, pressing the palm of one hand flat against his shirt-covered pectorals, slipping it down the front of his abdomen. She dug her fingers into the muscles there.

He bent down and kissed her forehead. “You don’t seem happy about it.”

She shrugged. “Obviously, you understand my relationship with her is strained.”

“Of course,” he replied. “But this is deeper than that.”

“I don’t think she’s here for entirely altruistic reasons,” she said. “She was really jealous that Violet left everything to me. And then when I didn’t share it with her, she wouldn’t speak to me.”

“You never said.”

Marigold heaved a giant sigh and shook her head. “I tend not to dwell on my mom’s moods. She’s always been flighty and unreliable and forgets from one minute to the next what she’s upset about. I guess this stuck, though, if she hasn’t even reached out to me. I mean, she went to see Cora to talk about me, but that’s that.”

“What did Cora say, then?”

“Cora was distracted. She’s having her own problems right now,” Marigold replied. “Her grandniece, Pearl, usually spends the spring in Orkney but she hasn’t shown up yet.”

Tom frowned again. This whole conversation was troubling and difficult to follow, driving home the point that there was still so much for him to learn. And, if there was one thing he  _had_  learned, it was that witches weren’t predisposed to being an open book, even with their significant others. Especially when it involved witchy things.

“What do you mean ‘show up’?”

Marigold shifted back and looked up at him, long and hard, her lips pressing into a firm line. It was as though she were trying to decide something by looking at him.

“What?” Tom asked.

She licked her lips. “She can’t just call her family and let her know where she’s at.”

“She a drifter too?”

“Of a sort,” Marigold replied, her lips twisting slightly.

He could see as plain as day that she was keeping information from him. Sure, it might not have been vital information, but it still bothered him. He wanted nothing more than to be truthful with her—about everything in his life—but here she was hedging around answers. Would she ever be able to move beyond that?  _Could_  she? It seemed she had been open to explaining over the weekend, trying to convince him that she truly had some extraordinary power in her hands, or that the trees talked to her out in her stone circle, but now she was clamped down tight.

“Marigold,” he said, drawing a hand up her back and circling his fingers around her neck, massaging the base of her head. Then he ran his fingers into her hair, grasping it firmly but not harshly. “Please don’t hide things from me. I want to know. I might not be able to understand, and I might even balk at things, but I want to know about you… about everything.”

She licked her lips and lifted, kissing the underside of his chin. “I don’t know, Tom. You’re barely coming around about the magic thing.”

“Let’s just say I had some help in that department when I spent time with little Bella,” he replied.

Marigold’s whole expression changed. Her body relaxed, a warm smile spread her features. “You’re good with kids.”

Tom laughed. “Yes, I am. And I love my nieces and nephews. But you’re changing the subject.”

“Can’t you just give me a few minutes to dwell on the fact that I think you’ll make a really great father one day?” she asked.

“Maybe one day soon?”

Marigold guffawed. “Can we go on our ‘first date’ first? Geez. Talk about rushing!”

“Alright,” he conceded. “First date, then the kid talk.”

“Maybe a dog or a cat first?”

“A dog.”

Marigold smiled. “Not a cat person?”

“Cats are fine, my allergies are not,” he replied. “And cats just seem to know who’s allergic and sit on your face.”

“Fair,” she said.

They were quiet again, listening to the ticking of the clock over the fireplace mantle.  She molded into his side again, notching her head into the crook of his neck in such a way that she could press her lips to his skin if she wanted. And she did. It was some time until either of the spoke again, and it was Marigold first.

She drew in a breath before starting. “Cora’s grandniece is a selkie.”

No, he hadn’t expected that. How could he ever expect some admission like that? “A  _what_?”

“You heard me,” she said. “Please don’t freak out on me.”

“I’m not freaking out?”

Marigold rolled her eyes. “I can feel you freaking out.”

“Well, allow me a little fit, won’t you? I’ve just been told that there are seals that are part human roaming the earth,” he said. “I was all in at believing magic existed… but now you’re telling me—”

“And this is exactly why I didn’t want to say anything.”

“What else is there? Out there?”

Marigold shifted and pulled away from him. She got up from the couch, standing and looking down at him with her hands on her hips. “Fairies. In fact, we’re—my family—are said to come from them, but I don’t believe that. Navajo skin-walkers are real. Basically, shifting between man and animal is a real thing, in many forms of magic. Anything supposedly mythical you’ve read about that’s partially humanoid in nature might be real, that’s how they blend in.”

“I just don’t know what to think about this,” he said.

“How about you don’t think about it and come show me what you were going to do to me before we were rudely interrupted?”

He wasn’t going to pass that up, no matter how confused and insignificant he now felt. This world really was vast and now that he really understood so little about anything, he didn’t even know what to think. Tom stood and took her outstretched hand but stopped after a step. “So, wait. Like a  _fairy_  fairy.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” she laughed. “But yes, a fairy. Long time ago. Like Stonehenge long ago.”

“Huh.”

“Can you forget about this long enough to make love to me properly?” she asked, coming up to him until her chest pressed against his and she was craning her neck up to look at him. “Unhappy fairies are not to be trifled with.”

Tom bent down and nipped playfully at her lips. “It’s okay, I know how to smooth things over.”

A challenging eyebrow rose at him.

“Wasn’t it chocolate and wine in a bath?”

“It’s a good thing you’re a quick study, Thomas.” Marigold patted his chest and turned back around, leaving him to watch her saunter in the direction of the bedroom.

He still felt that there was more she wasn’t telling him, but he couldn’t be arsed to care now, as most of the blood had drained from his head and traveled south. Giving up on thinking about anything of import, he willed his legs to follow her. Because he knew, despite any lingering reservations, he’d follow Marigold anywhere.


End file.
